Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 19:05:15 GMT
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Last-modified: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 15:40:28 GMT
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<TITLE> This is my homepage
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<H1>Myron A. Calhoun's <BLINK>minimal</BLINK> homepage:</H1>
<B>Five boxes preserve our freedoms:  soap, ballot, witness, jury, and cartridge.</B>
<P>
<I>Associate-Professor</I> Myron A. Calhoun, PhD (EE, Arizona State University, 1967)
<BR>(913) 532-6350 (work), (913) 532-7353 (FAX), (913) 539-4448 (home)
<BR>Amateur packet radio: W0PBV@N0ARY.#NOCAL.CA.USA.NOAM
<BR>NRA Life Member and Certified Instructor (Home Firearm Safety, Rifle, Pistol)
<P>
<HR>
KSU STUDENTS:  For information about CIS 362 or CIS 490, login to YOUR
"mainframe" (CNS UNIX) account, change directory ("cd") to MY account
("~mcalhoun") and then to the subdirectory ("CIS-362" or "CIS-490") of your
choice, and read (use "vi", "more", "less", "cat", "grep", etc.) whatever
you want to see.
<P>
Why don't I fix it so you can reach that stuff by simply "clicking" on an icon
here?  Because part of learning "computing" is learning to use (some of) the
tools of the trade, and I want you to learn how to "move around" and do other
things in a UNIX environment.  "Clicking" on an icon just isn't enough.
<HR>
<P>
<P>
<H1>and his <BLINK>maximal</BLINK> quotation pages:</H1>
I hope you find the following quotes interesting/useful/informative/....
<BR>If you have any additions and/or corrections, please be sure to let me know.
(mac@cis.ksu.edu)
<BR>Real Soon Now (tm?), I hope to break this monstrous blob into several
smaller chunks.
<BR>--Myron.
<HR>
Dr. Tibor R. Machan, professor of philosophy at Auburn University, in "The
Welfare State and the News, as reported in the December, 1996, issue of the
"Freeman" magazine:
<BR>Except for the editors of the few papers and magazines that champion
liberty, none of those in charge will encourage truly critical scrutiny of
mainstream political affairs.  None will raise such questions as "Why should
government deprive the successful of the fruits of their success, or even the
fortunate of their good fortune, just because others do not enjoy the same?"
<P>
Or who among those who feed off the welfare state so successfully would ever
raise the question: "Mr. President, if we spend borrowed money our children
will have to be taxed to repay, does this not violate the principle 'No
taxation without representation'?"
<P>
Would any such journalist raise the question to some politician or bureaucrat:
"If in the criminal law it is wrong to punish people unless they have been
proven guitly of a crime, why is it right that government regulations may
impose enormous economic burdens on people who have done nothing wrong?
Isn't this a kind of prior restraint that has no place in a free society?"
<P>
What about the question: "If the 14th Amendment prohibits the unequal
application of the law, why are producers prohibited from discriminating,
while consumers can do so with total impunity?  And why can government
regulate every profession but the press, arts, and clergy--is this not a
built-in inequality, a state-sponsored discrimination?"
<HR>
Leonard E. Read (1898-1983), Founding President of FEE, the Foundation for
Economic Education, said that, in an ideal America, every person should be free:
<BR> ... to pursue his ambition to the full extent of his abilities,
regardless of race or creed or family background.
<BR> ... to associate with whom he pleases for any reason he pleases,
even if someone else thinks it's a stupid reason.
<BR> ... to worship God in his own way, even if it isn't 'orthodox.'
<BR> ... to choose his own trade and to apply for any job he wants--and
to quit his job if he doesn't like it or if he gets a better offer.
<BR> ... to go into business for himself, be his own boss, and set his own
hours of work--even if it's only three hours a week.
<BR> ... to use his honestly acquired property or savings in his own
way--spend it foolishly, invest it wisely, or even give it away.
<BR> ... to offer his services or products for sale on his own terms,
even if he loses money on the deal.
<BR> ... to buy or not to buy any service or product offered for sale,
even if the refusal displeases the seller.
<BR> ... to disagree with any other person, even when the majority is
on the side of the other person.
<BR> ... to study and learn whatever strikes his fancy, as long as it seems
to him worth the cost and effort of studying and learning it.
<BR> ... to do as he pleases in general, as long as he doesn't infringe the
equal right and opportunity of every other person to do as he pleases.
<P>
<CENTER>KEY TO SOME ADDED CODES</CENTER>
<BR>{V}    = a quote's contents and spelling have been verfied.
<BR>{FF}   = Founding Father quotes
<BR>{LAW}  = Law-related quote
<BR>{NRA}  = NRA quotes
<BR>{RKBA} = Quotes upporting the Right to Keep and Bear arms
<BR>{HCI}  = HCI and other ANTI-gun quotes
<BR>{CASE} = Brief description of various court cases
            (more info is always appreciated!)
<BR>{CODE} = Quotation from the USC (United States Code)
<HR>
From: rdh@sli.com (Robert D. Houk)
<BR>Subject: The Second Amendment to the Constitution of the USA
<P>
Finding myself in the general neighborhood of Our Great Nation's Murder Capital,
with a few spare hours on my hand, I decided to risk life and limb by braving
the Throbbing Hoards (of Tourists) and check out just what the Bill of Rights
actually does say.
<P>
I went to the United State National Archives building and did myself in person
personnally look at and peruse the Bill of Rights.  The real Bill of Rights.
The 200-year-old "paper", signed by John Adams and Frederick Muhlenberg.  The
document from which were ratified the first ten amendments to the United State
Constitution, and in particular, the second amendment protecting the right to
keep and bear arms.
<P>
I have reproduced below various text bodies leading up to the second amendment,
all taken from facsimiles of documents leading up to the Bill of Rights.  Text
within bracket ("[]") characters is mine, identifying the following verbatim
text; text within double brackets ("[[]]") is explanatory comment.
<P>
Obviously, I cannot produce a facsimile of the original documents here, the best
I can do is to provide an ASCII representation of the body of text.  I have
preserved the actual grammar, spelling, punctuation, and line breaks as nearly
as possible within the constraints of 80-column ASCII terminals.
<P>
I have tried very hard to not make any transcription error, proofing the copy
several times on different days.  But ....
<BR>-------------------------------
<BR>[James Madison's proposal; June 8, 1789]
<P>
  The right of the people to keep and
<BR>bear arms fhall not be infringed; a
<BR>well armed, and well regulated mili-
<BR>tia being the beft fecurity of a free
<BR>country: but no perfon religioufly
<BR>fcrupulous of bearing arms, fhall be
<BR>compelled to render military fervice
<BR>in perfon.
<BR>---------------------------------------------------
<BR>[Amendments passed by the House of Representatives; August 24, 1789]
<P>
<CENTER>ARTICLE the FIFTH</CENTER>
<P>
  A well regulated militia, compofed of the body of the People,
<BR>being the beft fecurity of a free State, the right of the People to keep
<BR>and bear arms, fhall not be infringed, but no one religioufly fcru-
<BR>pulous of bearing arms, fhall be compelled to render military fervice
<BR>in perfon.
<P>
[Recall that, long ago, the letter "s" was often written to look like an "f".
<BR>---------------------------------------------------
<BR>[Amendments passed by the Senate; September 9, 1789]
<P>
<CENTER>ARTICLE the FOURTH</CENTER>
<P>
  A well regulated militia, being neceffary to the fecurity of a free State,
<BR>the right of the people to keep and bear arms, fhall not be infringed.
<BR>----------------------
<BR>The BILL of RIGHTS:
<P>
<BR>The joint resolution of Congress proposing 12 articles as amend-
<BR>ments to the Constitution was enrolled on parchment by William
<BR>Lambert, a clerk of the House, and is the federal government's
<BR>official copy.  It was signed by Frederick Augustus Muhlenberg,
<BR>Speaker of the House, on September 28, 1789, and by John Adams,
<BR>President of the Senate, shortly therafter.  The Bill of Rights,
<BR>as this parchment copy is now known, is on permanent display in
<BR>the Rotunda of the National Archives Building.
<P>
[[Note: I did in fact personally examine THE ORIGINAL DOCUMENT,
known officially as "The Bill of Rights", and the text is
EXACTLY as set down below, except for the constraints of an
80-character ASCII terminal as follows:
<P>
In the original document, the entire text, including the "Article the
Fourth....." text, fits on *ONE* line.  I have tried to indicate that
detail via the "\~~  " construct:  the "\" in conjunction with the
end-of-line and following "~~  " do *NOT* appear in the original text.]]
<P>
Article the fourth.....A well regulated Militia, being necefsary to the \
<BR>~~  security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear \
<BR>~~  Arms, shall not be infringed.
<BR>-------------------------------------------------------------
<CENTER>NOTE ON RATIFICATION OF THE AMENDMENTS</CENTER>
<P>
Eleven states made up the Union when Congress proposed 12 articles
to amend the Constitution on September 25, 1789.  With the
admission of North Carolina, Rhode Island, and Vermont during the
ratification period, 11 states had to ratify the articles in order
to achieve the three-fourths majority required by the Constitution.
<P>
In the ensuing two and one-half years, the first article proposed
by Congress was approved by only 10 states, the second by
only 6.  Articles 3 through 12 received the approval of the necessary
11th state when Virginia ratified them on December 15, 1791.
Accordingly, articles 3 through 12 became the first 10 amendments
to the Constitution.  [[List of states and dates of ratification omitted]]
<P>
Three states--Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Georgia--did not ratify the first
10 amendments until the celebration of the Sesquicentennial of the Constitution
in 1939.
<P>
<CENTER>[Amendment II] [[Twenglish spelling]]</CENTER>
<P>
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State,
the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
<BR>----------------------
<P>
And that's the way it is.
<P>
Available from the National Archives and Records Service, revised 1980,
"The Bill of Rights", ISBN 0-911333-42-8 ($2.50), includes facsimiles of
the original documents as above, plus a few other related documents.  The
notes on ratification and on the Bill of Rights came from this document.
<P>
Also available (I bought mine at the National Archives bookstore) is the
"Foundations of the Republic", select important United States historical
documents, including Mayflower Compact, Declaration of Independence (facsimile),
the Constitution (facsimile), Bill of Rights (facsimile), and a
few other random documents, no ISBN number, but from Frey Enterprises,
2120 Crestmoor Road--No. 125, Nashville, Tennessee 37215 ($3.95 at the
National Archives bookstore, for the "Bicentennial Edition", a largish
form page size (10" x 14") on parchmentish paper - you can actually decipher
the facimile documents without a needing a magnifying glass!)
<HR>
An educated Electorate, being necessary to the well-being of a free State, the
right of the people to speak and peacefully assemble, shall not be infringed.
<BR>--Dave Feustel (feustel@netcom.com)</CENTER>
<CENTER>Fort Wayne, IN (219) 483-1857</CENTER>
<HR>
From: toby@milton.u.washington.edu (Toby Bradshaw)
<BR>Department of Biochemistry and College of Forest Resources
<BR>University of Washington, Seattle
<BR>Date: 21 Sep 92 00:22:23 GMT
<BR>Newsgroups: rec.guns
<P>
<BR>"A well-educated electorate being necessary to the
<BR> prosperity of a free state, the right of the people
<BR> to keep and read books, shall not be infringed."
<P>
Do you conclude from this that only voters may own books?
<P>
Do you believe that all "inflammatory" books should be stored in libraries,
since no honest person needs such a book at home where a child might read it?
<P>
Does this statement make you want to register books, or ban some of them,
or prevent them from being read in public?
<P>
Should there be a waiting period for the purchase of "dangerous" books,
magazines, and newspapers?
<P>
Should speed reading courses be restricted to police and military to prevent
"assault reading" by citizens?
<P>
Do you think that banning legal possession of easily-concealed novels will
stop criminals from reading?
<P>
Should we stop teaching children to read, since what they might read could
be harmful to them?
<HR>
"At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we
fortify against it? Shall we expect some trans-Atlantic military giant to step
the ocean and crush us with a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and
Africa combined with a Bonaparte at their head and disposing of all the
treasure of the earth, our own excepted, could not by force make a track on the
Blue Ridge or take a drink from the Ohio in a trial of a thousand years.  At
what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever
reach us it must spring up from amongst us. It cannot come from abroad.  If
destruction be our lot, we ourselves must be its author and finisher. As a
nation of free men, we must live through all times, or die by suicide."
<BR>--Abraham Lincoln, 1838:
<P>
"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it.
Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise
their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to
dismember it or overthrow it."
<P>
"If the policy of the government upon vital questions affecting the whole
people is to be fixed by decisions of the supreme Court, then the people
will have ceased to be their own rulers."
<BR>--Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861:
<P>
"... the candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the Government upon
vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by
decisions of the supreme Court, ... the people will have ceased to be their
own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their Government into
the hands of that eminent tribunal."
<P>
"If I don't have to do it, it only shows that you don't have to either."
<P>
"We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do
not all mean the same thing."
<P>
"We, the People are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts
- not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow men who pervert
the Constitution."
<P>
"Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?"
<BR>--Abraham Lincoln
<P>
"What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence? It is
not... the guns of our war steamers, or the strength of our gallant and
disciplined army... our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has
planted in our bosoms."
<BR>--Abraham Lincoln, 1858
<HR>
<B>So far, no one has been able to verify the following quote:</B>
<P>
"1935 will go down in History! For the first time, a civilized nation has
full gun registration! Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient
and the world will follow our lead to the future!"
<P>
Adolf Hitler, 1936 Decree:  "A decision of the Fuhrer in the express form of a
law or decree may not be scrutinized by a judge.  In addition, the judge is
bound by any other decision of the Fuhrer, provided that they are clearly
intended to declare law."
<P>
Adolf Hitler, Edict of 18 March 1938 (or 1939?) (can anyone verify this
quote?):  "... history shows that all conquerors who have allowed their
subjected peoples to carry arms have prepared their own fall"
<P>
Adolf Hitler, `Mein Kamph':  "If you wish the sympathy of the broad masses,
then you must tell them the crudest and most stupid things."
<HR>
Alan Bock, `Orange County Register':  "The median family of four ... paid
$4,722 in federal taxes last year. That's enough to pay for a new curtain for
the secretary of commerce's office, to bribe a farmer not to plant 38 acres
with corn ... seven weeks of salary for a Customs man assigned to save us from
the terror of high-quality, low priced foreign TV sets, or the subsidy on 6,000
bushels of wheat to prop up the Soviet regime.  Surely civilization would
collapse without such essential services."
<HR>
Albert Einstein, "My First Impression of the U.S.A.", 1921:  "The prestige of
government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the Prohibition law.
For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of
the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that
the dangerous increase of crime in this country is closely connected with
this."
<P>
Albert Einstein:  "Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome
nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism -- how passionately I hate them!"
<HR>
Albert Gallatin of the New York Historical Society, 7 October 1789:  "The whole
of the Bill [of Rights] is a declaration of the right of the people at large or
considered as individuals...  It establishes some rights of the individual as
unalienable and which consequently, no majority has a right to deprive them of."
<HR>
Hamilton didn't argue that a select militia made a general militia unnecessary,
but rather that a general militia was insufficient by itself to adequately
protect the nation:    (Federalist 28 or 29?)
<P>
    "But so far from viewing the matter in the same light with those who
     object to select corps as dangerous, were the Constitution ratified,
     and were I to deliver my sentiments to a member of the federal
     legislature from this State on the subject of a militia establishment,
     I should hold to him, in substance, the following discourse:
<P>
    `The project of disciplining all the militia of the United
     States is as futile as it would be injurious, if it were capable of
     being carried into execution.  A tolerable expertness in military
     movements is a business that requires time and practice.  It is not
     a day, or even a week, that will suffice for the attainment of it.
     To oblige the great body of the yeomanry, and of the other classes
     of the citizens, to be under arms for the purpose of going through
     military exercises and evolutions, as often as might be necessary to
     acquire the degree of perfection which would entitle them to the
     character of a well-regulated militia, would be a real grievance to
     the people, and a serious public inconvenience and loss.  It would
     form an annual deduction from the productive labor of the country,
     to an amount which, calculating upon the present numbers of the
     people, would not fall far short of the whole expense of the civil
     establishments of all the States.  To attempt a thing which would
     abridge the mass of labor and industry to so considerable an extent,
     would be unwise: and the experiment, if made, could not succeed,
     because it would not long be endured.  Little more can reasonably be
     aimed at, with respect to the people at large, than to have them
     properly armed and equipped; and in order to see that this be not
     neglected, it will be necessary to assemble them once or twice in
     the course of a year.
<P>
Alexander Hamilton, collected in Federalist Paper 28, originally in the
10 January, 1788, "Daily Advertiser":  "If the representatives of the people
betray their constituents, there is then no resource left but in the exertion
of that original right of self-defence which is paramount to all positive forms
of government, and which against the usurpations of the national rulers, may be
exerted with infinitely better prospect of success than against the rulers of
an individual state.  In a single state, if the persons intrusted with supreme
power become usurpers, the different parcels, subdivisions, or districts of
which it consists, having no distinct government in each, can take no regular
measures for defense.  The citizens must rush tumultuously to arms, without
concert, without system, without resource; except in their courage and despair."
<P>
Alexander Hamilton, Federalist Paper 29 (on the organization of the militia):
"Little more can reasonably be aimed at, with respect to the people at large,
than to have them properly armed and equipped; and in order to see that this be
not neglected, it will be necessary to assemble them once or twice in the
course of a year."  {V}{FF}{RKBA}
<P>
Alexander Hamilton, Federalist Paper 29 (speaking of standing armies):  "... if
circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any
magnitude that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people
while there is a large body of citizens, little, if at all, inferior to them in
discipline and the use of arms, who stand ready to defend their own rights and
those of their fellow-citizens." {V}{FF}{RKBA}
<P>
Alexander Hamilton, Federalist Paper 79 (regarding payment of Judges):  "In the
general course of human nature, A power over a man's subsistence amounts to a
power over his will." {V}{FF}
<P>
Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers at 184-188 (cannot verify!):  "The
best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly
armed."
<P>
Alexander Hamilton, advice to jurors to acquit against the judge's
instructions:  "... if exercising their judgment with discretion and honesty
they have a clear conviction that the charge of the court is wrong."
<P>
Hamilton, Federalist #84:
"I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and to the
extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the
proposed Constitution, but would even be dangerous.  They would contain
various exceptions to powers not granted; and, on this very account, would
afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare
that things shall not be done which there is no power to do?  Why, for
instance, should it be said that the liberty of the press shall not be
restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed?
I will not contend that such a provision would confer a regulating power;
but it is evident that it would furnish, to men disposed to usurp, a
plausible pretense for claiming that power."
<HR>
Alexis de Tocqueville:  "The American Republic will endure, until politicians
realize they can bribe the people with their own money."
<P>
Alexis de Tocqueville:  "To commit violent and unjust acts, it is not enough
for a government to have the will or even the power; the habits, ideas and
passions of the time must lend themselves to their committal."
<P>
Alexis de Tocqueville:  "Where are we then?  The religionists are the enemies
of liberty, and the friends of liberty attack religion; the high-minded and the
noble advocate subjection, and the meanest and most servile minds preach
independence; honest and enlightened citizens are opposed to all progress,
whilst men without patriotism and without principles are the apostles of
civilization and intelligence.  Has such been the fate of the centuries which
have preceded our own?  and has man always inhabited a world like the present,
where nothing is linked together, where virtue is without genius, and genius
without honor; where the love of order is confounded with a taste for
oppression, and the holy rites of freedom with a taste for law; where the light
thrown by conscience on human actions is dim, and where nothing seems to be any
longer forbidden or allowed, honorable or shameful, false or true?"
<HR>
Algernon Sidney (1672):  "The only ends for which governments are constituted,
and obedience rendered to them, are the obtaining of justice and protection;
and they who cannot provide for both give the people a right of taking such
ways as best please themselves, in order to their own safety."
<HR>
Andrew Ford (UseNet):  "The price of liberty is, always has been, and always
will be blood: The person who is not willing to die for his liberty has already
lost it to the first scoundrel who is willing to risk dying to violate that
person's liberty! Are you free?"
<P>
Andrew Ford (UseNet):  "Without either the first or second amendment, we would
have no liberty; the first allows us to find out what's happening, the second
allows us to do something about it! The second will be taken away first,
followed by the first and then the rest of our freedoms."
<HR>
Andrew Jackson, 8th Annual Message to Congress (Dec 5, 1836):  "It is apparent
from the whole context of the Constitution as well as the history of the times
which gave birth to it, that it was the purpose of the Convention to establish
a currency consisting of the precious metals.  These were adopted by a
permanent rule excluding the use of a perishable medium of exchange, such as
certain agricultural commodities recognized by the statutes of some States as
tender for debts, or the still more pernicious expedient of paper currency."
<HR>
Aristotle:  "Money being naturally barren, to make it breed money is
preposterous, and a perversion from the end of its institution, which was only
to serve the purpose of exchange and not of increase. . . Usury is most
reasonably detested as the increase arises from the money itself, and not by
employing it to the purpose for which it was intended."
<HR>
Benjamin Disraeli:  "The world is governed by far different personages than
what is imagined by those not behind the scenes."
<HR>
Benjamin Franklin, 1759 (Franklin B. Historical Review of Pennsylvania. 1759):
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety
deserve neither liberty nor safety."  {V}{FF}{RKBA}
<P>
Benjamin Franklin, before the Constitutional Convention, (June 2, 1787):  "...
as all history informs us, there has been in every State & Kingdom a constant
kind of warfare between the governing & governed: the one striving to obtain
more for its support, and the other to pay less.  And this has alone occasioned
great convulsions, actual civil wars, ending either in dethroning of the
Princes, or enslaving of the people.  Generally indeed the ruling power carries
its point, the revenues of princes constantly increasing, and we see that they
are never satisfied, but always in want of more.  The more the people are
discontented with the oppression of taxes; the greater need the prince has of
money to distribute among his partisans and pay the troops that are to suppress
all resistance, and enable him to plunder at pleasure.  There is scarce a king
in a hundred who would not, if he could, follow the example of Pharoah, get
first all the peoples money, then all their lands, and then make them and their
children servants for ever ..."
<P>
Benjamin Franklin, letter to the French Ministry March 1778:  "He who shall
introduce into public affairs the principle of primitive Christianity will
change the face of the world."
<P>
Benjamin Franklin:  "Taxes on consumption, like those on capital or income, to
be just, must be uniform."
<HR>
Bill McIntire, Spokesman for the National Rifle Association, on Norfolk, Va.
council's vote to cancel four gun shows, 1992:  "Banning gun shows to reduce
violent crime will work about as well as banning auto shows to reduce drunken
driving."
<HR>
"Guns cause crime, like flies cause garbage."  --Author unknown.
<HR>
Bob Emmers, `Orange County Register':  "The task of government in this
enlightened time does not extend to actually dealing with problems.  Solving
problems might put bureaucrats out of work.  No, the task of government is to
make it look as though problems have been solved, while continuing to keep the
maximum number of consultants and bureaucrats employed dealing with them."
<HR>
Boyd Crabtree:  "We are ignorant of what we ignore."
<HR>
Bruce A. Budlong, Dept. of the Treasury (1977):  "The same monetary system that
was established on April 2, 1792, is in effect today."
<HR>
Butler D. Shaffer, Southwestern School of Law, Los Angeles:  "Let us go back in
time to the point at which we began to allow others to operate as authorities
over us, and begin to confront the proposition that others have rightful power
over our lives, that others have expertise superior to anything we could ever
know on our own.  Let us respond to such a proposition as any 3-year old would
to anything so palpably absurd: "Why?" /P/ When we relearn to ask such
questions - and to ask them of anyone who seeks to advance his or her authority
over us - we shall have discovered the way to our psychological independence."
<HR>
Byron C. Radaker, Chairman and C.E.O., Congoleum Corp.:  "Our government has
found that the most effective way to control a person is not by the the ballot
or the bullet, but rather by the 'bucket'.  Today, in a country that fought a
revolution to rid itself of a repressive government and excessive taxes,
government takes 40 percent of everything we earn in the form of taxes."
<HR>
California citizen attempting to purchase a firearm for self-defense during
rioting in Los Angeles, week of 30 April 1992:  "What do you mean 'wait
fifteen days'? This is America!"
<HR>
Calvin Coolidge:  "Nothing is easier than spending public money.  It does not
appear to belong to anybody.  The temptation is overwhelming to bestow it on
somebody."
<HR>
Charles A. Beard:  "You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get
yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about
repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle
for independence."
<HR>
Charles Evans Hughes, Justice of the supreme Court (1907):  "...  the
Constitution is what the judges say it is."
<HR>
Charlie Chaplin, "The Little Dictator":  "Dictators free themselves by
enslaving others.  They work not for your benefit, but their own."
<HR>
Chief Justice Harlan F. Stone, 12th Chief Justice, US supreme Court, 1941:
"The law itself is on trial quite as much as the cause which is to be decided."
<HR>
Chief Justice John Jay, 1st Chief Justice, US supreme Court (Georgia vs.
Brailsford, 1794:4):  "The jury has a right to judge both the law as well as
the fact in controversy."
<HR>
Chief Justice John Marshall:  "The government of the United States has been
emphatically termed a government of laws and not men."
<HR>
Chief Justice Joseph Story, US supreme Court (_Commentaries on the Constitution
of the United States_, pp 746-747 (1833)):  "The right of the citizen to keep
and bear arms has justly been considered the palladium of the liberties of the
Republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and the
arbritrary powers of rulers, and will generally -- even if these are successful
-- enable the people to resist and triumph over them."  {V}{RKBA}
<HR>
Chief Justice Marlin T. Phelps, Arizona supreme Court:  "Nothing was further
from the minds of the Framers of the Constitution, than that the supreme Court
should ever make the Supreme Law of the Land."
<HR>
Chief Justice Warren Burger:  "Ours is a sick profession.  [A profession marked
by] incompetence, lack of training, misconduct, and bad manners.  Ineptness,
bungling, malpractice, and bad ethics can be observed in court houses all over
this country every day."
<HR>
Congressional Record Vol. 90 Sec. 271 (b)(1) p.2243 (1939):  "Under this bill
we are trying our best to eliminate tax returns for some 30,000,000 of our
individual taxpayers by allowing them to use the so-called W-2 form, which
results in the taxpayer not computing his own tax but having his tax computed
by the collector ... This whole thing is for the purpose of removing
complications and difficulties that have arisen by reason of the enactment of
the so-called pay-as-you-go system."
<HR>
Congressman George Hansen:  "If a tactic you try irritates the I.R.S. and its
agents, you can assume it is legal - remember it for future use."
<HR>
Congressman Jerry Voorhis:  "The banks -- commercial banks and the Federal
Reserve -- create all the money of this nation and its people pay interest on
every dollar of that newly created money.  Which means that private banks
exercise unconstitutionally, immorally, and ridiculously the power to tax the
people. For every newly created dollar dilutes to some extent the value of
every other dollar already in circulation."
<HR>
Congressman Wright Patman: "Mr. Eccles [Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board],
how did you get the money to buy those two billion of government securities?";
Eccles: "We created it."  Congressman Patman: "Out of what?"; Eccles: "Out of
the right to issue credit money.", The House Banking and Currency Committee;
September 30, 1941
<P>
Congressman Wright Patman, Chairman, House Banking Committee:  "In the United
States today we have in effect two governments ... We have the duly constituted
Government ... Then we have an independent, uncontrolled and uncoordinated
government of the Federal Reserve System, operating the money powers which are
reserved to Congress by the Constitution."
<HR>
Daniel Boorstin `The mysterious Science of the Law':  "In the first century of
American independence, the [Blackstone] Commentaries were not merely an
approach to the study of the law; for most lawyers they constituted all there
was of the law."
<HR>
Daniel Webster, Speech on Hamilton:  "He smote the rock of the national
resources and abundant streams of revenue gushed forth.  He touched the dead
corpse of public credit, and it sprang upon its feet."
<P>
Daniel Webster:  "God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always
ready to guard and defend it."
<P>
Daniel Webster:  "Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption
of authority.  It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to
guard the people against the dangers of good intentions.  There are men in all
ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern.  They promise to be good
masters, but they mean to be masters."
<HR>
David Veal (Usenet):  "For every action there is an equal, and opposite,
government program"
<HR>
Delegate Sedgwick, during the Massachusetts Convention, rhetorically asking if
an oppressive standing army could prevail [Johnathan Elliot, ed., Debates in
the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution,
Vol.2 at 97 (2d ed., 1888)]:  "... if raised, whether they could subdue a
Nation of freemen, who know how to prize liberty, and who have arms in their
hands?"
<HR>
Donald T. Regan"  "We do many things at the federal level that would be
considered dishonest and illegal if done in the private sector."
<HR>
Dorcas R. Hardy, Commissioner of Social Security:  "There is no law requiring a
person to apply for a Social Security number, and there is no section of title
18, United States Code, making it a crime to not have a social security number."
<HR>
Douglas MacArthur, General, 1957:  "Our government has kept us in a perpetual
state of fear -- kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor -- with
the cry of grave national emergency... Always there has been some terrible evil
to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it by furnishing the
exorbitant sums demanded.  Yet, in retrospect, these disasters seem never to
have happened, seem never to have been quite real."
<HR>
Edmund Burke (1729-1797):  "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is
for good men to do nothing."
<P>
Edmund Burke, `Reflections on the Revolution in France':  "Kings will be
tyrants from policy, when subject are rebels from principle."
<P>
Edmund Burke, `Reflections on the Revolution in France':  "The age of chivalry
is gone.  That of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded."
<P>
Edmund Burke:  "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to
do nothing."
<P>
Edmund Burke, 1784:
"The people never give up their liberty but under some delusion."
<BR> [Contrast the above with U.S. Senator Joseph Biden's statement:
"Banning guns is an idea whose time has come"
as reported on 18 November, 1993, by the Associated Press.]
<HR>
Edward Abbey:  "The tank, the B-52, the fighter-bomber, the state controlled
police and the military are the weapons of dictatorship. The rifle is the
weapon of democracy... If guns are outlawed, only the government will have
guns. Only the police, the secret police, the military, the hired servants of
our rulers.  Only the government - and a few outlaws. I intend to be among the
outlaws."
<HR>
Edward Gibbon, `The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire':  "...
the discretion of the judge is the first engine of tyranny."
<HR>
Ethan Allen, American Revolutionary Hero. `Reason, The Only Oracle of Man':
"There is not any thing, which has contributed so much to delude mankind in
religious matters, as mistaken apprehensions concerning supernatural
inspiration or revelation; not considering that all true religion originates
from reason, and can not otherwise be understood, but by the exercise and
improvement of it."
<HR>
Frank Herbert:  "Governments do not know what they cannot do until after they
cease to be governments.  Each government carries the seeds of its own
destruction."
<P>
Frank Herbert:  "Laws to suppress tend to strengthen what they would prohibit.
This is the fine point on which all the legal professions of history have based
their job security."
<P>
Frank Herbert:  "Prisons are needed only to provide the illusion that courts
and police are effective.  They're a kind of job insurance."
<HR>
Franklin D. Roosevelt (on Social Security):  "We must not allow this type of
insurance to become a dole through the mingling of insurance and relief.  It is
not charity.  It must be financed by contributions not taxes ... Let us keep
out every element which is actuarily unsound."
<P>
Franklin D. Roosevelt:  "Governments never do anything by accident; if
government does something you can bet it was carefully planned."
<HR>
Fred Rodell:  "In tribal times, there were the medicine men.  In the Middle
Ages, there were the priests.  Today there are the lawyers.  For every age, a
group of bright boys, learned in their trade and jealous of their learning, who
blend technical competence with plain and fancy hocus-pocus to make themselves
masters of their fellow men.  For every age, a pseudo-intellectual autocracy,
guarding the tricks of its trade from the uninitiated, and running, after its
own pattern, the civilization of its day." /-P-/ "It is the lawyers who run our
civilization for us - our governments, our business, our private lives."
<HR>
Frederic Bastiat, `The Law':  "Sometimes the law defends plunder and
participates in it.  Sometimes the law places the whole apparatus of judges,
police, prisons and gendarmes at the service of the plunderers, and treats the
victim - when he defends himself - as a criminal."
<P>
"Everyone wants to live at the expense of the State.  They forget that
the State lives at the expense of everyone."  --Frederic Bastiat
<P>
"Often the masses are plundered and do not know it."  --Frederic Bastiat
<P>
"They would be the shepherds over us, their sheep.
Certainly such an arrangement presupposes that they are naturally superior to
the rest of us.  And certainly we are fully justified in demanding from the
legislators and organizers proof of this natural superiority."
--Frederic Bastiat
<P>
"Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have
made laws.  On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property
existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place."
--Frederic Bastiat
<P>
"See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them,
and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong.  See if the law
benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen
himself cannot do without committing a crime."  --Frederic Bastiat
<P>
"When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in
society, they create for themselves in the course of time, a legal system
that authiorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it".  --Frederic Bastiat,
ECONOMIC SOPHISMS, from chapter titled THE PHYSIOLOGY OF PLUNDER.
<HR>
Frederick Douglass (1857):  "The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the
endurance of those whom they oppress."
<HR>
G. K. Chesterton:  "'My country right or wrong' is like saying, 'My mother
drunk or sober.'"
<HR>
Gandhi:  "You may think your actions are meaningless and that they won't help,
but that is no excuse, you must still act."
<HR>
Gary Larson (Far Side):  "My baby's left my lily pad, my legs were both
deep-fried.  I eat flies all day and when I'm gone, they'll stick me in
formaldehyde...  Oh, I got the greeeeeens, I got the greens real baaaaaad...."
<HR>
Gazette of the United States, 14 October 1789:  "The right of the people to
keep and bear arms has been recognized by the General Government; but the best
security of that right after all is, the military spirit, that taste for
martial exercises, which has always distinguished the free citizens of these
states...  Such men form the best barrier to the liberties of America."
<HR>
George Bancroft (1845):  "... the Union, which was constituted by consent, must
be preserved by love."
<HR>
George Bernard Shaw:  "Patriotism is a pernicious, psychopathic form of idiocy."
<HR>
George Bush, Made to Robert Sherman of American Atheist Press at the Chicago
airport, August 27 1988.  The exchange appeared in the Boulder Daily Camera on
Monday February 27, 1989.  It can also be found in "Free Enquiry" magazine,
Fall 1988 issue, Volume 8, Number 4, page 16.:  "I don't know that atheists
should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots.  This is
one nation under God."
<HR>
George Stark, General:  "LIVE FREE OR DIE; DEATH IS NOT THE WORST OF EVILS."
<HR>
George Washington and John Adams, Diplomatic message to Malta:  "The United
States is in no way founded upon the Christian religion."
<P>
George Washington, Farewell Address:  "Guard against the impostures of
pretended patriotism."
<P>
George Washington, Farewell Address:  "Occupants of public offices love power
and are prone to abuse it."
<P>
George Washington, General, Continental Army (Ret.):  "Firearms are second only
to the Constitution in importance; they are the people's liberty's teeth."
<P>
George Washington, speech of 7 January 1790 in the Boston Independent
Chronicle, 14 January 1790:  "A free people ought... to be armed..."
<BR> [Contrast the above with U.S. Representative Major Owens's statement:
"My bill ... establishes a 6-month grace period for the turning in of all
handguns" as recorded in the Congressional Record of 10 November, 1993.]
<P>
George Washington:  "Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is
force! Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."
<P>
George Washington:  "If ever again our nation stumbles upon unfunded paper, it
shall surely be like death to our body politic.  This country will crash."
<P>
George Washington:  "The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere
restrains evil interference -- they deserve a place of honor with all that's
good ..."
<P>
George Washington, in his Farewell Address (17 September, 1796; from Commager's
"Documents of American History", p. 174; cited in the February, 1996, Freeman):
"The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is, in extending
our commercial relations to have with them as little political connection as
possible.  So far as we have already formed engagements let them be fulfilled
with perfect good faith.  Here let us stop.  ...  It is our true policy to
steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world, so
far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it."
<HR>
Goethe: "Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.  Boldness has genius,
power and magic in it."
<HR>
Grover Cleveland:  "At times like the present, when the evils of unsound
finance threaten us, the speculator may anticipate a harvest gathered from the
misfortune of others, the capitalist may protect himself by hoarding or may
even find profit from the fluctuations of values, but the wage earner - the
first to be injured by a depreciated currency - is practically defenseless."
<HR>
H.L. Mencken:  "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they
want, and deserve to get it good and hard."
<P>
H.L. Mencken:  "Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands,
hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats."
<P>
H.L. Mencken:  "The saddest life is that of a political aspirant under
democracy.  His failure is ignominious and his success is disgraceful."
<HR>
Harlon Carter: "Those who will not fight for their rights deserve to lose them."
<P>
Harlon Carter:  "`Compromise' is the art of giving your opponent that which he
is not powerful enough to take."
<HR>
Harold Berman, Harvard law professor:  "[The] whole culture seems to be facing
the possibility of a kind of nervous breakdown ... One major symptom of this
threatened breakdown is the massive loss in the confidence in law - not only on
the part of law-consumers but also on the part of lawmakers and distributors."
<HR>
Henry Clay:  "The Constitution of the United States was made not merely for the
generation that then existed, but for posterity -- unlimited, undefined,
endless, perpetual posterity."
<HR>
Henry David Thoreau:  "I have lived some thirty years on this planet and I have
yet to hear the first syllable of valuable or even earnest advice from my
seniors."
<P>
Henry David Thoreau:  "If a thousand men were not to pay their tax-bills this
year, that would ... [be] the definition of a peaceable revolution, if any such
is possible."
<P>
Henry David Thoreau:  "In times when the government imprisons any unjustly, the
true place for a just man is also the prison."
<HR>
Henry Ford:  "Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is the probable
reason why so few engage in it."
<HR>
Henry Kissinger:  "It is not a matter of what is true that counts, but a matter
of what is perceived to be true."
<HR>
Henry Spencer:  "Life is so much more meaningful if you take the time to hunt
down and strangle twits who post blather to inappropriate newsgroups."
<HR>
Hermann Goering, 1936:  "Naturally the common people don't want war ... but
after all it is the leaders of a country who determine policy, and it is always
a simple matter to drag the people along ... All you have to do is tell them
they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and
exposing the country to danger.  It works the same in any country."
<HR>
Hon. Larry Moritz, Municipal Judge, Spearville Kansas (1981):  "If Congress
won't keep its part of the Constitutional bargain and coin money of gold and
silver like Article 1, Section 8, Clause 5 commands, there's no way my court
can require anyone to pay fines.  I'm not here to protect certain people's
investments, I'm here to carry out the mandate of the U.S. and the Kansas
Constitutions."
<HR>
Horace Greeley:  "While boasting of our noble deeds, we are careful to conceal
the ugly fact that by an iniquitous money system we have nationalized a system
of oppression which, though more refined, is not less cruel than the old system
of chattel slavery."
<P>
Horace Greely:  "The way to resume [specie payments] is to resume."
<HR>
IRS Strategic Plan, (May 1984):  "A ``decay in the social contract'' is
detectable; there is a growing feeling, particularly among middle-income
taxpayers, that they are not getting back, from society and government, their
money's worth for taxes paid.  The tendency is for taxpayers to try to take
more control of their finances ..."
<HR>
Irwin Schiff:  "If you want irresponsible politicians to spend less, you must
give them less to spend."
<HR>
J.F.C. Fuller:  "Long before the outbreak of the war their brains had become
ossified, and even the terrible circumstances of this battle could not
penetrate the historic concrete in which they were encased."
<HR>
James A. Kidney, `U.S. News & World Report':  "Despite growing unease among the
public and legal experts, judges ... are reaching into areas once considered
the exclusive preserve of legislators, public administrators and the family."
<HR>
James Earl Jones:  "The world is filled with violence. Because criminals carry
guns, we decent law-abiding citizens should also have guns. Otherwise they will
win and the decent people will loose."
<HR>
James Madison, 1788:  "As the courts are generally the last in making the
decision [on laws], it results to them, by refusing or not refusing to execute
a law, to stamp it with its final character.  This makes the Judiciary dept
paramount in fact to the Legislature, which was never intended, and can never
be proper."
<P>
James Madison, A Memorial and Remonstrance, addressed to the General Assembly
of the Commonwealth of Virginia, 1785:  "What influence, in fact, have
ecclesiastical establishments had on society? In some instances they have been
seen to erect a spiritual tyranny on the ruins of the civil authority; on many
instances they have been seen upholding the thrones of political tyranny; in no
instance have they been the guardians of the liberties of the people."
<P>
James Madison, Federalist Paper 10:  "Hence it is that such democracies have
ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found
incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in
general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their
deaths."  {V}{FF}
<P>
James Madison, Federalist Paper 44:  "The sober people of America are weary of
the fluctuating policy which has directed the public councils.  They have seen
with regret and indignation that sudden changes and legislative interferences,
in cases affecting personal rights, become jobs in the hands of enterprising
and influential speculators, and snares to the more-industrious and less
informed part of the community.  They have seen, too, that one legislative
interference is but the first link of a long chain of repetitions, every
subsequent interference being naturally produced by the effects of the
preceding." {V}{FF}
<P>
James Madison, Federalist Paper 46:  "Besides the advantage of being armed,
which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the
existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached, and by
which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the
enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government
of any form can admit of.  Notwithstanding the military establishments in the
several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources
will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms."
{V}{FF}{RKBA}
<P>
James Madison, Federalist Paper 46:  "The Constitution preserves the advantage
of being armed...."
<P>
James Madison, Federalist Paper 46:  "The adversaries of the Constitution seem
to have lost sight of the people altogether in their reasonings on this
subject; ...  These gentlemen must here be reminded of their error.  They must
be told that the ultimate authority, wherever the derivative may be found,
resides in the people alone, and that it will not depend merely on the
comparative ambition or address of the different governments, whether either,
or which of them, will be able to enlarge its sphere of jurisdiction at the
expense of the other." {V}{FF}
<P>
James Madison, Federalist Paper 62:  "It will be of little avail to the people,
that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous
that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if
they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such
incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what
it will be to-morrow.  Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that
be a rule, which is little known, and less fixed?"  {V}{FF}{LAW}
<P>
James Madison, Federalist Paper 62:  "To trace the mischievous effects of a
mutable government would fill a volume. I will hint a few only, each of which
will be perceived to be a source of innumerable others."  {V}{FF}
<P>
James Madison, I Annals of Congress 434, 8 June 1789:  "The right of the people
to keep and bear... arms shall not be infringed.  A well regulated militia,
composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the best and most
natural defense of a free country..."
<P>
James Madison:  "Resistance to tyranny is service to God."
<HR>
Joel Barlow:  "It is because the people are civilized, that they are with
safety armed."
<HR>
John Adams, 1771:  "It is not only [the juror's] right, but his duty, in that
case, to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgement,
and conscience, though in direct opposition to the direction of the court."
<P>
John Adams, A Defense of the Constitutions of the Government of the USA, 471
(1787-88):  "Arms in the hands of citizens [may] be used at individual
discretion...  in private self-defense..."
<BR> [Contrast the above with Attorney General Janet Reno's statement:
"Gun registration is not enough.  I've always proposed state licensing...
with some federal standards."
as reported by the Associated Press and by ABC on 10 December, 1993.]
<P>
John Adams, letter to Jefferson:  "This would be the best of all possible
worlds, if there were no religion in it."
<P>
John Adams, letter to John Taylor:  "The priesthood have, in all ancient
nations, nearly monopolized learning... And since the Reformation, when or
where has existed a Protestant or dissenting sect who would tolerate A FREE
INQUIRY? [sic] The blackest billingsgate, the most ungentlemanly insolence, the
most yahooish brutality, is patiently endured, countenanced, propagated, and
applauded.  But touch a solemn truth in collusion with dogma of a sect, though
capable of the clearest proof, and you will soon find you have disturbed a
nest, and the hornets will swarm about your eyes and hand, and fly into your
face and eyes."
<P>
John Adams:  "It would be an absurdity for jurors to be required to accept the
judge's view of the law, against their own opinion, judgement, and conscience."
<P>
John Adams:  "We hold that each man is the best judge of his own interest."
<HR>
John F. Kennedy at Columbia University, (10 days before his assassination):
"The high office of President has been used to foment a plot to destroy the
American's freedom, and before I leave office I must inform the citizen of his
plight."
<HR>
John Hospers:  "By far the most numerous and most flagrant violations of
personal liberty and individual rights are performed by governments ... The
major crimes throughout history, the ones executed on the largest scale, have
been committed not by individuals or bands of individuals but by governments,
as a deliberate policy of those governments -- that is, by the official
representatives of governments, acting in their official capacity."
<HR>
John Locke, 1632-1704; Second (?) Treatise Concerning Civil Government:
<P>
"...every Man has a Property in his own Person.  This no Body has any Right
to but himself.  The Labour of his Body, and the Work of his Hands, we may
say, are properly his. .... The great and chief end therefore, of Mens
uniting into Commonwealths, and putting themselves under Government, is
the Preservation of their Property."
<P>
Government "can never have a Power to take to themselves the whole or any part
of the Subjects Property, without their own consent.  For this would be in
effect to leave them no Property at all."   .... Rulers "must not raise Taxes
on the Property of the People, without the Consent of the People, given by
themselves, or their Deputies."
<P>
"'Tis a Mistake to think this Fault [tyranny] is proper only to Monarchies;
other Forms of Government are liable to it, as well as that.  For where-ever
the Power that is put in any hands for the Government of the People, and the
Preservation of their Properties, is applied to other ends, and made use of
to impovrish, harass, or subdue them to the Arbitrary and Irregular Commands
of those that have it:  There it presently becomes Tyranny, whether those
that thus use it are one or many."
<P>
"The people cannot delegate to government the power to do anything
which would be unlawful for them to do themselves."
<P>
"... whenever the Legislators endeavor to take away, and destroy the Property
of the People, or to reduce them to Slavery under Arbitrary Power, they put
themselves into a state of War with the People, who are thereupon absolved
from any farther Obedience, and are left to the common Refuge, which God
hath provided for all Men, against Force and Violence.  Whensoever therefore
the Legislative shall transgress this fundamental Rule of Society, and
either by Ambition, Fear, Folly or Corruption, endeavor to grasp themselves,
or put into the hands of any other an Absolute Power over the Lives, Liberties,
and Estates of the People; By this breach of Trust they forfeit the Power,
the People had put into their hands, for quite contrary ends, and it devolves
to the People, who have a Right to resume their original Liberty."
<P>
John Locke, "True end of government", late 1600's; chapter 28 "Of Tyranny".
202. Wherever law ends, tyranny begins, if the law be transgressed to another's
harm; an whosoever in  authority exceeds the power given him by the law, and
makes use of the force he has under his command to compass that upon the subject
which the law allows not, ceases in that to be a magistrate, and acting without
authority may be opposed, as any other man who by force invades the right of
another.  This is acknowledged in subordinate magistrates.  He that hath
authority to seize my person in the street may be opposed as a thief and a
robber if he endeavours to break into my house to execute a writ,
notwithstanding that I know he has such a warrant and such a legal authority
as will empower him to arrest me abroad.  An why this should not hold in the
highest, as well as in the most inferior magistrate, I would galdly be
informed....
<HR>
John Maynard Keynes, `The Economic Consequences of The Peace':  "By a continuing
process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an
important part of the wealth of their citizens.  There is no subtler, no surer
means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency.
The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of
destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to
diagnose."
<P>
John Maynard Keynes, `The Economic Consequences of The Peace':  "Economic
privation proceeds by easy stages, and so long as men suffer it patiently the
outside world cares little.  Physical efficiency and resistance to disease
slowly diminish, but life proceeds somehow, until the limit of human endurance
is reached at last and counsels of despair and madness stir the sufferers from
the lethargy which precedes the crisis.  Then man shakes himself and the bonds
of custom are loosed.  The power of ideas is sovereign, and he listens to
whatever instruction of hope, illusion, or revenge is carried to him on the
air."
<P>
John Maynard Keynes, `The Economic Consequences of The Peace':  "It is
historically true that no order of society ever perishes save by its own hand."
<P>
John Maynard Keynes:  "If governments should refrain from regulation ... the
worthlessness of the money becomes apparent and the fraud upon the public can
be concealed no longer."
<HR>
John Trenchard and Walter Moyle:  "It's the misfortune of all Countries, that
they sometimes lie under a unhappy necessity to defend themselves by Arms
against the ambition of their Governors, and to fight for what's their own. If
those in government are heedless of reason, the people must patiently submit to
Bondage, or stand upon their own Defence; which if they are enabled to do, they
shall never be put upon it, but their Swords may grow rusty in their hands; for
that Nation is surest to live in Peace, that is most capable of making War; and
a Man that hath a Sword by his side, shall have least occasion to make use of
it."
<HR>
John W. Whitehead, `The Second American Revolution':  "In recent years we have
witnessed numerous marches on Washington in which one group or another has
demanded new "rights." Frequently, such rights have not meant freedom from
state control, but rather entitlement to state action, protection, or subsidy.
In the process of yielding to the "will of the people" and creating new rights,
the state invariably enlarges itself and its bureaucracy.  Each new right seems
to demand a new agency to guarantee it, administer it, or deliver it."
<HR>
Josiah Quincy (1774):  "Under God we are determined that, wheresoever,
whensoever, or howsoever, we shall be called upon to make our exit, we will die
freemen."
<HR>
Judge Carlos Bea:  "It is not now, nor was it ever the law, that before
submitting to a lawful arrest, a fleeing felon is entitled to a fair
fistfight."
<HR>
Justice Hugo Black, Columbia University's Charpentier Lectures (1968):  "The
public welfare demands that constitutional cases must be decided according to
the terms of the Constitution itself, and not according to judges' views of
fairness, reasonableness, or justice.  I have no fear of constitutional
amendments properly adopted, but I do fear the rewriting of the Constitution by
judges under the guise of interpretation."
<P>
Justice Hugo Black:  "... any broad unlimited power to hold laws
unconstitutional because they offend what this Court conceives to be the
`conscience of our people' ... was not given by the Framers, but rather has
been bestowed on the Court by the Court."
<HR>
Justice John M. Harlan, US supreme Court, 1895:  "We must hold firmly to the
doctrine that in the courts of the United States it is the duty of juries in
criminal cases to take the law from the court, and apply that law to the facts
as they find them to be from the evidence."
<HR>
Justice Louis Brandeis, Olmstead vs. United States, United States supreme
Court, 1928:  "Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect
liberty when the government's purposes are beneficent . . .  the greatest
dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning
but without understanding."
<HR>
Justice Miller, US supreme Court, Loan Association vs. Topeka, 20 Wall (87 US)
664 (1874):  "To lay with one hand the power of government on the property of a
citizen, and with the other to bestow it on favored individuals. . . is none
the less robbery because it was done under the forms of law and is called
taxation."
<HR>
Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, US supreme Court, Horning vs. District of
Columbia, 138 (1920)(or 1902?):  "The jury has the power to bring a verdict in
the teeth of both law and fact."
<HR>
Justice Thurgood Marshall, US supreme Court:  "The most efficient form of
government is a dictatorship."
<HR>
Justice William O. Douglas:  "As nightfall does not come at once, neither does
oppression.  In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains
seemingly unchanged.  And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware
of change in the air -- however slight -- lest we become unwitting victims of
the darkness."
<HR>
Ken Konecki on Usenet, on 27 Jul 1992:  "The 2nd amendment was never intended
to allow private citizens to 'keep and bear arms'.  If it had, there would have
been wording such as 'the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not
be infringed.'"
<HR>
Laurence Tribe, Harvard law professor:  "... the highest mission of the supreme
Court, in my view, is not to conserve judicial credibility, but in the
Constitution's own phrase, `to form a more perfect union' between right and
rights within that charter's necessarily evolutionary design."
<HR>
Leo Masters:  "I do not feel, based on my studies, that the government has
written any mysterious statutes to intentionally fraud or extort anything from
the citizens. I do feel that it is a classic case of adopting customs during a
period when a lot of legislation was taking place changing the course of life
in the United States.  The combination of illiteracy between government and
citizens just followed these customs.  We have transpired into 50 years of
chaos and confusion which is only going to get straightened out through a
series of effective and well set cases in the courts."
<HR>
Leroy Pyle on Assault Rifles:  "You didn't hear Elliot Ness whining about Al
Capone's machine gun."
<HR>
Lord Henry Brougham, `Present State of the Law':  "The whole machinery of the
State, all the apparatus of the system, and its varied workings, end in
bringing simply twelve good men into the box."
<HR>
Louis Rukeyser, host of Wall Street Week:  "It's anti-American.  It's
anti-growth.  It's anti-success.  It's anti-upward mobility.  It isn't a tax
cut ... it's a scam."
<HR>
Luke 16:13 :  "Ye cannot serve God and mammon."
<HR>
Lysander Spooner (1808-1887):  "That no government, so called, can reasonably
be trusted, or reasonably be supposed to have honest purposes in view, any
longer than it depends wholly upon voluntary support."
<P>
Lysander Spooner:  "... the only security men can have for their political
liberty, consists in keeping their money in their own pockets ..."
<HR>
Mao:  "The people are to the guerilla as water is to the fish."
<HR>
Mark Twain:  "A newspaper is not just for reporting the news, it's to get
people mad enough to do something about it."
<P>
Mark Twain:  "If you can't stand solitude, perhaps others find you boring as
well."
<P>
Mark Twain:  "What if you were an idiot, and what if you were a member of
Congress?  But I repeat myself."
<HR>
Marshall McLuhan:  "If the temperature in the bathtub is raised only one degree
every ten minutes, how does the bather know when to start screaming?"
<HR>
Martin Niemoller:  "In Germany they came first ... for the Jews, and I didn't
speak up because I wasn't a Jew.  Then they came for the trade unionists, and I
didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.  Then they came for the
Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.  Then they came
for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up."
<HR>
Marvin Cooley:  "We must pity the poor wretched, timid soul who is too
faint-hearted to resist his oppressors.  He sings the song of the dammed: "I
can't fight back; I have too much to lose; I own too much property; I have
worked too hard to get what I have; They will put me out of business if I
resist; I might go to jail; I have my family to think about." Such poor
miserable creatures have misplaced values and are hiding their cowardice behind
pretended family responsibility - blindly refusing to see that the most
glorious legacy that one can bequeath to posterity is liberty; and that the
only true security is liberty."
<HR>
Mason City Globe-Gazette:  "An unbiased person is someone who has the same bias
as we have."
<HR>
Mathew Lyon (1746-1822), American Patriot and Congressman:  "I cannot say that
I am descended from the bastards of Oliver Cromwell, or his courtiers, or from
the Puritans who punish their horses for breaking the Sabbath, or from those
who persecuted Quakers and burned the witches."
<HR>
Merrill Jenkins, Inventor (1958), died in 1979:  "God forbid, if anyone were
to come out with a copper slug with a para-magnetic surface, it would look
like silver to my {vending} machine."
<P>
"Those unaware are unaware of being unaware."
<P>
"We have world government now!  Our monetary system would
not work if all of the world's bankers were not in collusion."
<HR>
Michael H. Brown, `Brown's Lawsuit Cookbook':  "You've got to know where the
machinery is and how it works before you can throw a monkey-wrench into it."
<HR>
Michael J. Hodge, Asst. Attorney General, State of Michigan:  "... U.S.
Constitution, Article 1, Section 10, is binding on the states."
<HR>
Mike Black, General Manager, WEOS(FM) on FCC content restrictions:  "...[W]e
are an NPR station but feature modern music, including rap, metal, and
alternative rock. We play the balancing act **or try to** between legal and
creative programming." ["**" added]
<HR>
"Estimates are that over 100 billion dollars from legitimate enterprises and 35
billion dollars from illegal business is not being reported on individual tax
returns."
<BR>--Minutes of IRS Central Region Bar Association Liaision, Nov 2, 1979:
<HR>
Mohandas Gandhi:  "Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as cooperation
with good."
<HR>
Montesquieu:  "The deterioration of a government begins almost always by a
decay of its principles."
<HR>
Noah Webster in a pamphlet, "An Examination into the Leading Principals of the
Federal Constitution.", aimed at swaying Pennsylvania toward ratification [Paul
Ford, ed., Pamphlets on the Constitution of the United States, at 56 (New York,
1888)]:  "Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they
are in almost every kingdom of Europe.  The supreme power in America cannot
enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are
armed, and constitute a force superior to any bands of regular troops that can
be, on any pretense, raised in the United States."
<HR>
Patrick Detches.  Letter to `The Register' (17 April 1984):  "In 1983 $21
billion was spent in agricultural subsidies - almost equal to the net income of
all American farmers."
<HR>
Patrick Henry [3 J. Elliot, Debates in the Several State Conventions 45, 2d ed.
Philadelphia, 1836]:  "Are we at last brought to such humiliating and debasing
degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense?  Where is the
difference between having our arms in possession and under our direction, and
having them under the management of Congress?  If our defense be the _real_
object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more
propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?"
<P>
Patrick Henry [3 J. Elliot, Debates in the Several State Conventions 45, 2d ed.
Philadelphia, 1836]:  "Guard with jealous attention the public liberty.
Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel.  Unfortunately, nothing will
preserve it but downright force.  Whenever you give up that force, you are
inevitable ruined."
<P>
Patrick Henry and George Mason, Elliot, Debates at 185:  "...the people have a
right to keep and bear arms."
<P>
Patrick Henry, in the Virginia Convention on the ratification of the
Constitution.  Debates and other Proceedings of the Convention of Virginia,
[taken in shorthand by David Robertson of Petersburg, at 271, 275 (2d ed.
Richmond, 1805).  Also 3 Elliot, Debates at 386]:  "The great object is that
every man be armed.  Everyone who is able may have a gun."
SUPPOSEDLY refers to a state militia, organized and officered by the state!
<HR>
Paul Anderson (?? I think.  _Not_ Poul):  "If the price I must pay for my
freedom is to acknowledge that the government was granted the power to infringe
on them, then I am not free."
<HR>
Paul Strassel, Former IRS Headquarters Agent `Wall St. Journal' 1/28/80:  "The
real point of audits is to instill fear, not to extract revenue; the IRS aims
at winning through intimidation and (thereby) getting maximum voluntary
compliance."
<HR>
Paul Williams, `Das Energi':  "Don't ever think you know what's right for the
other person.  He might start thinking he knows what's right for you."
<HR>
President Garfield:  "Whoever controls the volume of money in any country is
absolute master of all commerce and industry."
<HR>
Prof. Abram Chayes, Harvard law school:  "[Judicial action in the last two
decades] adds up to a radical transformation of the role and function of the
judiciary in American life.  Its chief function now is as a catalyst of social
change with judges acting as planners of large scale."
<HR>
Prof. Edward S. Corwin:  "[Attorneys have been] prone to identify the judicial
version of the Constitution as the authentic Constitution."
<HR>
Prof. William Forrester, Cornell law school:  "The Court has assumed,
gradually, the role of deciding the problems on its own and ...the American
people and their selected officials gradually have accepted the Court as the
political instrument for lawmaking."
<HR>
R.T. McNamar, Deputy Secretary of the Treasury:  "The federal income tax system
is deeply flawed."
<HR>
Randall Hackley, `The Register':  "At least 9,000 Orange County residents
belong to organizations that believe it's unconstitutional to pay income taxes."
<HR>
Rep. Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, spoken during floor debate over the
Second Amendment, I Annals of Congress at 750, 17 August 1789:  "What, Sir, is
the use of a militia?  It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army,
the bane of liberty. ...  Whenever Governments mean to invade the rights and
liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order
to raise an army upon their ruins."
<HR>
Rep. Steven D. Symms, Idaho:  "The income tax is unconstitutional and was not
part of the original intent of those who drafted our Constitution or
government."
<HR>
Report of the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Committee on the
Judiciary, United States Senate, 97th Congress, Second Session (February 1982):
 "The conclusion is thus inescapable that the history, concept, and wording of
the Second Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, as well as its
interpretation by every major commentator and court in the first half-century
after its ratification, indicates that what is protected is an individual right
of a private citizen to own and carry firearms in a peaceful manner."
<HR>
Richard E. Byrd, Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates (1910):  "A hand
from Washington will be stretched out and placed upon every man's business; the
eye of the Federal inspector will be in every man's counting house.  The law
will of necessity have inquisitorial features, it will provide penalties.  It
will create a complicated machinery.  Under it businessmen will be hauled into
courts distant from their homes.  Heavy fines imposed by distant and unfamiliar
tribunals will constantly menace the taxpayer.  An army of Federal inspectors,
spies and detectives will descend upon the state.  They will compel men of
business to show their books and disclose the secrets of their affairs.  They
will dictate forms of bookkeeping.  They will require statements and
affidavits.  On the one hand the inspector can blackmail the taxpayer and on
the other, he can profit by selling his secret to his competitor."
<HR>
Richard Henry Lee (or whoever really wrote the anti-federalist "Letters from
the Federal Farmer to the Republican") (1787-1788); Initiator of the Declaration
of Independence, and member of the first Senate, which passed the Bill of
Rights.  [Walter Bennett, ed., Letters from the Federal Farmer to the
Republican, at 21,22,124 (Univ. of Alabama Press, 1975)]:  "To preserve liberty,
it is essential that the whole body of people always possess arms, and be taught
alike, especially when young, how to use them..."
<P>
Richard Henry Lee, Senator, First Congress, Additional Letters from the Federal
Farmer 53 (1788) at 169:  "A militia, when properly formed, are in fact the
people themselves...  and include all men capable of bearing arms....  To
preserve liberty it is essential that the whole body of the people always
possess arms and be taught alike... how to use them."
<HR>
Richard M. Nixon:  "I'm a lawyer, and I can't make head or tail out of the
current form."
<HR>
Robert H. Hemphill, Credit Manager of Federal Reserve Bank, Atlanta, Ga.:  "We
are completely dependent on the commercial Banks.  Someone has to borrow every
dollar we have in circulation, cash or credit.  If the Banks create ample
synthetic money we are prosperous; if not, we starve.  We are absolutely
without a permanent money system.  When one gets a complete grasp of the
picture, the tragic absurdity of our hopeless position is almost incredible,
but there it is.  It is the most important subject intelligent persons can
investigate and reflect upon.  It is so important that our present civilization
may collapse unless it becomes widely understood and the defects remedied
soon."
<HR>
Robert H. Jackson (1953):  "There is no such thing as an achieved liberty; like
electricity, there can be no substantial storage and it must be generated as it
is enjoyed, or the lights go out."
<HR>
Robert Heinlein, in a 1949 letter concerning "Red Planet":  "...I am opposed to
all attempts to license or restrict the arming of individuals...I consider such
laws a violation of civil liberty,  subversive of democratic political
institutions, and self-defeating in their purpose."
<P>
"Whether the authorities be invaders or merely local tyrants, the
 effect of such [gun] laws is to place the individual at the mercy
 of the state, unable to resist."
       - Robert Heinlein, in a 1949 letter concerning "Red Planet"
<P>
"An armed man need not fight."...
"Well, in the first place, an armed society is a polite society.
 Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.
 For me, politeness is a *sine qua non* of civilization..."
<BR>--Heinlein, Robert, "Beyond this Horizon",
         (c)1942 paperback from Signet page 147:
<HR>
Ron Paul, House of Representatives, Texas:  "Strictly speaking, it probably is
not "necessary" for the federal government to tax anyone directly; it could
simply print the money it needs.  However, that would be too bold a stroke, for
it would then be obvious to all what kind of counterfeiting operation the
government is running.  The present system combining taxation and inflation is
akin to watering the milk; too much water and the people catch on."
<HR>
Ronald Reagan:  "It's time we rebelled."
<P>
Ronald Reagan:  "When I am President, my number one priority will be to
get big government off the back of the American people."
<P>
Ronald Reagan's Speech at the 1964 National Convention:  A Time for Choosing

"This idea that government was beholden to the people, that it had no other
source of power, is still the newest, most unique idea in all the long history
of man's relation to man.  This is the issue of this election:  Whether we
believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American
Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant
capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves."
<HR>
Rt. Hon. Reginald McKenna, Secretary of the Exchequer, Midland Bank of England
(1920):  "Those who create and issue money and credit direct the policies of
government and hold in the hollow of their hands the destiny of the people."
<HR>
SA Oberfuhrer of Bad Tolz, March, 1933:  "All military type firearms are to be
handed in immediately ... The SS, SA and Stahlhelm give every respectable
German man the opportunity of campaigning with them.  Therefore anyone who does
not belong to one of the above named organizations and who unjustifiably
nevertheless keeps his weapon ... must be regarded as an enemy of the national
government."
<HR>
Salmon P. Chase (1862):  "My agency in promoting the passage of the National
Bank Act was the greatest financial mistake of my life.  It has built up a
monopoly which affects every interest in the country.  It should be repealed,
but before that can be accomplished, the people will be arrayed on one side and
the banks on the other, in a contest such as we have never before seen in this
country."
<HR>
Samuel Adams [Debates and Proceedings in the Convention of the Commonwealth of
Massachusetts, at 86-87 (1788?) (Peirce <Pierce??> & Hale, eds., Boston, 1850)]:
"That the said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to
infringe the just liberty of the press or the rights of conscience; or to
prevent the people of The United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping
their own arms..."
<BR> [Contrast the above with U.S. Representative Mel Reynolds' statement:
"If it were up to me we'd ban them all"
as reported on 9 December, 1993, by CNN.]
<P>
Samuel Adams:  "If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of
servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home and leave us
in peace.  We seek not your council [counsel?], nor your arms. Crouch down and
lick the hand that feeds you; and may posterity forget that ye were our country
men [countrymen?]."
<HR>
Samuel Chase, signer of the Declaration of Independence, and supreme Court
Justice, (1796-1804?):  "The jury has the right to determine both the law and
the facts."
<HR>
Samuel Cooke (1770):  "Fidelity to the public requires that the laws be as
plain and explicit as possible, that the less knowing may understand, and not
be ensnared by them, while the artful evade their force."
<P>
Samuel Cooke (1770):  "Mysteries of law and government may be made a cloak of
unrighteousness."
<HR>
Schaeffer & Koop, `Whatever happened to the Human Race?':  "[Law] is only what
most of the people think at that moment of history, and there is no higher law.
 It follows, of course, that the law can be changed at any moment to reflect
what the majority currently thinks." /-P-/ "More accurately, the law becomes
what a few people in some branch of the government think will promote the
present sociological and economic good.  In reality the will and moral
judgement of the majority are now influenced by or even overruled by the
opinions of a small group of men and women.  This means that vast changes can
be made in the whole concept of what should and what should not be done.
Values can be altered overnight and at almost unbelievable speed."
<HR>
Schopenhaur:  "Governments make of philosophy a means of serving their state
interests, and scholars make a trade of it."
<HR>
Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell (D Me) [from a speech to the National
Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) on Friday afternoon Jan 22. CSPAN was
running the speech]:  "A CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT THAT CANNOT BE PRACTICED IS NO
RIGHT AT ALL; IT'S AN ILLUSION."
<HR>
Senator Bill Bradley:  "People are fed up."
<HR>
Senator Carter Glass (1983):  "I never thought the Federal Reserve System would
prove such a failure.  The country is in a state of irretrievable bankruptcy."
<HR>
Senator Edward M. Kennedy:  "The tax system is stacked against the average
taxpayer."
<HR>
Senator Edward V. Long:  "The IRS has become morally corrupted by the enormous
power which we in Congress have unwisely entrusted to it.  Too often it acts
like a Gestapo preying upon defenseless citizens."
<HR>
Senator Frank Church, Chairman, Select Committee to Study Governmental
Operations with respect to Intelligence Activities of the United States Senate,
94th Congress, First Session, Volume 3, Internal Revenue Service (October 2,
1975):  "... If the law does not assure that tax returns files by Americans
will not be turned against them, our system of voluntary compliance with the
tax laws faces a doubtful future."
<HR>
Senator Gary Hart:  "Let's do away with income taxes."
<HR>
Dem Sen. Howard Metzenbaum (sponsor) during the
         floor debate of the Brady Bill, 1993
"I don't care about crime, I just want to get the guns."
<P>
"No, we're not looking at how to control criminals ... we're
 talking about banning the AK-47 and semi-automatic guns."
<P>
"I'm not interested in getting a bill that deals with airport
security... all I want to do is get at plastic guns."
<HR>
Senator Hubert Humphrey:  "The right of citizens to bear arms is just one more
guarantee against arbitrary government, one more safeguard against tyranny
which now appears remote to in America, that historically has proven to be
always possible."
<HR>
Senator Paul Laxault:  "The high-handed bureaucratic excesses of the IRS are a
national disgrace ... riding roughshod over the taxpayers and making a joke out
of our rule of laws."
<HR>
Senator Sam Ervin:  "... judicial verbicide is calculated to convert the
Constitution into a worthless scrap of paper and to replace our government of
laws with a judicial oligarchy."
<HR>
Senator William Grayson of Virginia in a letter to Patrick Henry:  "Last Monday
a string of amendments were presented to the lower house; these altogether
respect personal liberty..."
<HR>
Series 1928 Federal Reserve Note:  "Redeemable in gold on demand at the United
Stares Treasury or in gold or lawful money at any Federal Reserve Bank."
<P>
Series 1934 Federal Reserve Note:  "This note is legal tender for all debts
public and private and is redeemable in lawful money at the United States
Treasury or at any Federal Reserve Bank."
<P>
Series 1963 Federal Reserve Note:  "This note is legal tender for all debts,
public and private."
<HR>
Sir Edward Coke, First Institute:  "Reason is the life of the law; nay, the
common law itself is nothing else but reason."
<P>
Sir Edward Coke, Reports:  "They [corporations] cannot commit treason ... for
they have no souls."
<HR>
Socrates:  "The unexamined life is not worth living."
<HR>
Stephen Nestor, IRS:  "They just might find that it's easier to drop out of the
system than to fight the excessive fines or get social security numbers for
their kids."
<HR>
Sun Tzu:  "All warfare is based on deception.  A skilled general must be master
of the complementary arts of simulation and dissimulation; while creating
shapes to confuse and delude the enemy he conceals his true dispositions and
ultimate intent.  When capable he feigns incapacity; when near he makes it
appear that he is far away; when far away; that he is near.  Moving as
intangibly as a ghost in the starlight, he is obscure, inaudible.  His primary
target is the mind of the opposing commander; the victorious situation, a
product of his creative imagination.  Attacking the mind of the enemy is an
indispensable preliminary to battle."
<HR>
Susan B. Anthony, 1871:  "I declare to you that woman must not depend upon the
protection of man, but must be taught to protect herself, and there I take my
stand."
<HR>
T. Coleman Andrews, Commissioner of the IRS:  "Let's get rid of the income tax
... it's legalized confiscation ... too complicated ... destroying the middle
class."
<HR>
T.S. Eliot:  "Most of the trouble in the world is caused by people wanting to
be important."
<HR>
Tacitus, 56-120 A.D.:  "The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws."
Tacitus:  "[The] more corrupt the government, the greater the number of laws."
<HR>
Tench Coxe in "Remarks on the First Part of the Amendments to the Federal
Constitution.", under the pseudonym "A Pennsylvanian" in the Philadelphia
Federal Gazette, 18 June 1789, (ten days after the introduction of the Bill
of Rights) at 2 col. 1: "As civil rulers, not having their duty to the people
duly before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as the military forces which
must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their powers
to the injury of their fellow-citizens, the people are confirmed by the next
article [the Second Amendment] in their right to keep and bear their private
arms."
<BR> [Contrast the above with U.S. Representative Charles Schumer's statement:
"We're here to tell the NRA {National Rifle Association} their nightmare is
True.... We're going to hammer guns on the anvil of relentless legislative
strategy!  We're going to beat guns into submission!"
as reported on 30 November and 8 December, 1993, by NBC.]
<P>
Tench Coxe, Pennsylvania Gazette, 20 Febraury 1788:  "Congress have no power to
disarm the militia.  Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the
soldier, are the birthright of an American...  The unlimited power of the sword
is not in the hands of either the federal or state government, but, where I
trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people."
<HR>
The Congressional Record (June 12, 1935):  "We can't ask for support for a
[social security] plan not at least as good as any American could buy from a
private insurance company."
<HR>
Theophilus Parsons, in the Massachusetts Convention on the ratification of the
U.S. Constitution [Jonathan Elliot, ed., _The Debates of the Several State
Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution_, (New York, Burt
Franklin: 1888), 2:94 :  "But, sir, the people themselves have it in their
power effectually to resist usurpation, without being driven to an appeal of
arms.  An act of usurpation is not obligatory; it is not law; and any man may
be justified in his resistance.  Let him be considered as a criminal by the
general government, yet only his fellow-citizens can convict him; they are his
jury, and if they pronounce him innocent, not all the powers of Congress can
hurt him; and innocent they certainly will pronounce him, if the supposed law
he resisted was an act of usurpation."
<HR>
Thomas A. Edison:  "People who will not turn a shovel full of dirt on the
project (muscle Shoals Dam) nor contribute a pound of material, will collect
more money from the United States than will the People who supply all the
material and do all the work.  This is the terrible thing about interest ...
But here is the point: If the Nation can issue a dollar bond it can issue a
dollar bill.  The element that makes the bond good makes the bill good also.
The difference between the bond and the bill is that the bond lets the money
broker collect twice the amount of the bond and an additional 20%.  Whereas the
currency, the honest sort provided by the Constitution, pays nobody but those
who contribute in some useful way.  It is absurd to say our Country can issue
bonds and cannot issue currency.  Both are promises to pay, but one fattens the
usurer and the other helps the People.  If the currency issued by the People
were no good, then the bonds would be no good, either.  It is a terrible
situation when the Government, to insure the National Wealth, must go in debt
and submit to ruinous interest charges at the hands of men who control the
fictitious value of gold.  Interest is the invention of Satan."
<HR>
Thomas Jefferson [A quote from Thomas Jefferson in a letter to William S. Smith
in 1787.  Taken from Jefferson, On Democracy 20, S. Padover ed., 1939]:  "And
what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time
to time that this people preserve the spirit of resistance?  Let them take
arms....The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood
of patriots and tyrants"
<P>
Thomas Jefferson quoted by by Gerard Straub "Salvation for Sale":  "It does me
no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god.  It neither
picks my pocket nor breaks my leg."
<P>
Thomas Jefferson, 1 Jan 1802, address to the Danbury Baptists:  "The First
Amendment has erected a wall of separation between church and state, but that
wall is a one directional wall; it keeps the government from running the
church, but it makes sure that Christian principles will always stay in
government."
<P>
Thomas Jefferson, 1789:  "The new Constitution has secured these [individual
rights] in the Executive and Legislative departments: but not in the Judiciary.
 It should have established trials by the people themselves, that is to say, by
jury."
<P>
Thomas Jefferson, 1814:  "In every country and in every age, the priest has
been hostile to liberty.  He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting
his abuses in return for protection to his own"
<P>
Thomas Jefferson, 1820:  "You seem...to consider the judges as the ultimate
arbiters of all constitutional questions; a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and
one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy....  The
Constitution has erected no such single tribunal."
<P>
Thomas Jefferson, 1821:  "...the Federal Judiciary; an irresponsible body (for
impeachment is scarcely a scare-crow), working like gravity by night and by
day, gaining a little to-day and a little to-morrow, and advancing it's
noiseless step like a thief, over the field of jurisdiction, until all shall be
usurped from the States, and the government of all be consolidated into one.
...when all government... in little as in great things, shall be drawn to
Washington as the centre of all power, it will render powerless the checks
provided of one government on another and will become as venal and oppressive
as the government from which we separated."
<P>
Thomas Jefferson, 1821:  "The germ of dissolution of our federal government is
in...the federal judiciary; an irresponsible body, (for impeachment is scarcely
a scare-crow,) working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little
to-day and a little to-morrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief,
over the field of jurisdiction, until all shall be usurped from the States."
<P>
Thomas Jefferson, Quoted by Gerard Straub, in 'Salvation for Sale.':  "It does
me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god.  It
neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.
<P>
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Adams, 11 Apr 1823:  "The truth is, that the
greatest enemies of the doctrine of Jesus are those calling themselves the
expositors of them, who have perverted them to the structure of a system of
fancy absolutely incomprehensible, and without any foundation in his genuine
words. And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus by the
Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the
fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter."
<P>
Thomas Jefferson, letter to W. Short, 1820:  "[Of Jesus] Among the sayings and
discourses imputed to him by his biographers, I find many passages of fine
imagination, correct morality, and of the the most lovely benevolence, and
others, again of so much ignorance, so much absurdity, so much untruth,
charlatanism and imposture, as to pronounce it impossible that such
contradictions should have proceeded from the same being. I separate,
therefore, the dross; restore to him the former and leave the latter to the
stupidity of some, the roguery of others of his disciples. Of this band of
dupes and impostors, Paul was the great Coryphaeus, and first corruptor of the
doctrines of Jesus."
<P>
Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Johnson, 12 June 1823, The Complete
Jefferson, p.322:  "On every question of construction (of the Constitution) let
us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted,
recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what
meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or intended against it, conform to the
probable one in which it was passed."
<P>
Thomas Jefferson, proposal Virginia Constitution, June 1776, 1 Thomas Jefferson
Papers, 334 (C.J. Boyd, Ed., 1950):  "No free man shall ever be debarred the
use of arms.  The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep
and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in
government."
<P>
    From: chan@shell.portal.com (Jeff Chan)
    The above "guotation" is really two separate and non-contiguous quotes by
    Thomas Jefferson that have been incorrectly run together by net people.
<P>
    I found in the Thomas Jefferson Papers (on microfilm at Stanford):
<P>
         "No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms"
<P>
    This was in Jefferson's own hand, was part of a draft of Virginia's
    Constitution, and was dated June 1776 (perhaps by the collector of the
    papers).  Another version adds "on his own lands and tenements".  In the
    one I found, the word is "freeman" (as in non-slave) and not "free man".
    (I guess if you can't own guns, you're a slave....... :-(
<P>
    The other separate quote also appears to be from TJ's papers,
    but I have not found the original source myself:
<P>
         "The strongest reason for the people to retain the right
          to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect
          themselves against tyranny in government."
<BR>      -- 1 Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334 (C. J. Boyd, Ed., 1950).
<P>
    I can say for certain that it does *not* occur next to the
    "No freeman" quote in the document I saw.
<P>
Thomas Jefferson, in his first inaugural address (as reported in the February,
1996, Freeman):  "... a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men
from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their
own persuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of
labor the bread it has earned.  This is the sum of good government, and this
is necessary to close the circle of our felicities."
<P> Thomas Jefferson, in the same inaugural address, exhorted us to pursue
what he termed an essential principle of our government:  "... peace, commerce,
and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none."
<P>
Thomas Jefferson:  "...judges should be withdrawn from the bench whose
erroneous biases are leading us to dissolution.  It may, indeed, injure
them in fame or fortune; but it saves the Republic..."
<P>
Thomas Jefferson:  "A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of
exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it
gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the
ball and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no
character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be the constant companion of your
walks." {in a letter to a young relative; Encyclopedia of Thomas Jefferson,
318 (Foley, Ed., reissued 1967)}
<BR> [Contrast the above with Joycelyn Elder's statement:
"Handguns are a public health issue"
as reported on 9 November, 1993, in USA Today.]
<P>
Thomas Jefferson:  "Above all I hope that the education of the common people
will be attended to so they won't forget the basic principles of freedom."
<P>
Thomas Jefferson:  "As for the right to suicide..if this is a "Christian
Nation", then only God theoretically has the right to take a life.  It's a
touchy issue.  I personally believe you have every right to suicide, but only
if you succeed.  Failures should be punished.  Now, is it a Christian nation?
I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature."
<P>
Thomas Jefferson:  "I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to
our liberties than standing armies."
<P>
Thomas Jefferson:  "I consider trial by jury as the only anchor yet imagined by
man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution."
<P>
Thomas Jefferson:  "I deny the power of the general government to making paper
money, or anything else a legal tender."
<P>
Thomas Jefferson:  "I place economy among the first and most important virtues
and public debt as the greatest dangers to be feared ... We must not let our
rulers load us with perpetual debt.  We must make our choice between economy
and liberty or profusion and servitude ... The same prudence which in private
life would forbid our paying money for unexplained projects, forbids it in the
disposition of public money.  We are endeavoring to reduce the government to
the practice of rigid economy to avoid burdening the people ..."
<P>
Thomas Jefferson:  "If the American people ever allow the banks to control
issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks
and corporations that grow up around them will deprive the people of all
property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their
fathers occupied."
<P>
Thomas Jefferson:  "If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of
the people under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy."
<P>
Thomas Jefferson:  "The opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide
what laws are constitutional, and what not, ... would make the judiciary a
despotic branch."
<P>
Thomas Jefferson:  "To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the
propagation of opinions which he disbelieves is sinful and tyrannical."
<P>
Thomas Jefferson:  "We mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes,
and our sacred honor."
<P>
Thomas Jefferson, quoting Beccari's "On Crimes and Punishment (1764):
"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms... disarm only those who are neither
inclined nor determined to commit crimes.  Such laws make things worse for
the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage
than prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater
confidence than an armed one."
<BR> [Contrast the above with U.S. Senator Howard Metzenbaum's statement
in the 1993 Senate Hearings:
"Until we can ban all of them, then we might as well ban none."]
<HR>
Thomas Paine, in Writings of Thomas Paine at 56 (1894)
(in NRA Rifleman: Thoughts on Defensive War, 1775):  "The supposed
quietude of a good man allures the ruffian; while on the other hand, arms like
laws discourage and keep the invader and the plunderer in awe, and preserve
order in the world as well as property.  The balance of power is the scale of
peace.  The same balance would be preserved were all the world destitute of
arms, for all would be alike; but since some will not, others dare not lay them
aside...  Horrid mischief would ensue were one half the world deprived of the
use of them; ... the weak will become the prey to the strong."
<P>
Thomas Paine, `The Age of Reason':  "Whenever we read the obscene stories, the
voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and tortuous executions, the unrelenting
vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more
consistent that we call it the word of a demon than the word of God.  It is a
history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind."
<P>
Thomas Paine:  "... The strength and power of despotism consists wholly in the
fear of resistance."
<P>
Thomas Paine:  "I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church,
by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the
Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of.  My own mind is my own
church."
<P>
Thomas Paine, in "American Crisis", published by the Philadephia Journal on
December 19 and read by George Washington to his soldiers on Christmas Day,
1776:  "These are the times that try men's souls.  The summer soldier and
the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their
country, but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and
woman.  Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this
consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the
triumph."
<P>
Thomas Paine:  "Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like
men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
<P>
Thomas Paine; Rights of Man, Part II:  Great part of that order which reigns
among mankind is not the effect of government.  It has its origin in the
principles of society and the natural constitution of man.  It existed prior
to government, and would exist if the formality of government was abolished.
<P>
Thomas Paine: "The balance of power is the scale of peace.  The same balance
would be preserved were all the world destitute of arms, for all would be
alike; but since some will not, others dare not lay them aside. ... Horrid
mischief would ensue were one half the world deprived of the use of
them; ... the weak will become a prey to the strong."
<P>
Thomas Paine, in Common Sense:  "Society is produced by our wants, and
government by our wickedness."
<HR>
Thomas Pownall:  "Let therefore every man, that, appealing to his own heart,
feels the least spark of virtue or freedom there, think that it is an honor
which he owes himself, and a duty which he owes his country, to bear arms."
<HR>
Tom Anderson:  "I wonder why some of the so-called guardians of freedom are so
anxious to register guns and so reluctant to register Communists."
<HR>
Trevor Marshall, `Byte' (May 1988):  "It's not ... how you play the game, but
how you design the playing field."
<HR>
Unknown(??):  "... the Constitution is an intentionally incomplete, often
deliberately indeterminate structure for the participatory evolution of
political ideals and governmental practices."
<P>
Unknown(??):  "Are gun buy-back programs like offering cut rate prostitutes in
the hope of reducing rape?"
<P>
Unknown(??):  "External environmental indicators and internal compliance
measures reflect a continuing decline in the extent to which taxpayers are
willing or able to voluntarily comply with the federal tax laws ..."
<P>
Unknown(??):  "When all else fails, read the directions."
<HR>
W. Somerset Maugham:  "If a nation or an individual values anything more than
freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony is that if it is comfort or
money it values more, it will lose that too."
<HR>
Washington Post 1/7/92:  "Justice Department studies show that armed citizens
are much less likely to suffer losses or personal injury from thieves"
<HR>
William H. Seward (1850):  "There is a higher law than the Constitution."
<HR>
William Jennings Bryan:  "Destiny is not a matter of chance; it is a matter of
choice.  It is not something to be waited for; but rather something to be
achieved."
<HR>
William Pitt (1783):  "Necessity is the argument of tyrants, it is the creed of
slaves."
<HR>
Winston Churchill:  "If you will not fight for the right when you can easily
win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and
not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all
the odds against you and only a small chance of survival.  There may even be a
worse case: you may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it
is better to perish than to live as slaves."
<HR>
Woodrow Wilson:  "A great industrial Nation is controlled by its system of
credit.  Our system of credit is concentrated.  The growth of the Nation and
all our activities are in the hands of a few men.  We have come to be one of
the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated
Governments in the world -- no longer a Government of free opinion, no longer a
government of conviction and vote of the majority, but a Government by the
opinion and duress of small groups of dominant men."
<HR>
Zachariah Johnson, 3 Elliot, Debates at 646:  "The people are not to be
disarmed of their weapons.  They are left in full possession of them."
<HR>
`Miracle on Main Street':  "Who could have foreseen that between 1923 and 1929,
the Federal Reserve would print up a 62 per cent inflation and then suddenly
stop, whiplashing the country into the crash of '29, followed by a numbing
depression that lasted more than a decade?"
<HR>
`Orange County Register':  "Californians seem to understand that government's
major function is to entertain.  No matter who is elected, the politicos end up
swindling us, wasting our tax money on pork-barrel projects.  The only way to
reclaim at least some of that lost money is to elect politicians who put on a
good show."
<HR>
`The Pennsylvania Gazette' (Dec. 16, 1789):  "Since the federal constitution
has removed all danger of our having a paper tender, our trade is advanced
fifty percent.  Our monied people can trust their cash abroad, and have brought
their coin into circulation."
<HR>
`The Register':  "IRS figures indicate that in 1983, 347,000 Californians owed
the federal government back taxes totaling $1.2 billion, the highest numbers in
the nation."
<HR>
`The Second American Revolution':  "... a 1973 Harris Poll found that only 18
percent of the public had confidence in lawyers, a somewhat lower approval
rating than that of garbage collectors."
<P>
`The Second American Revolution':  "In Massachusetts, the Body of Liberties
(1641) permitted anyone who could not plead his own cause to retain someone
else for assistance "provided he give him noe fee or reward for his paines".
`The Second American Revolution':  "Law has become utilitarian.  It can be what
the majority conceives as law, or it can be what an elite says it is.  There is
no absolute.  In the end, it is always what a court or judge says it is."
<HR>
`The Spotlight':  "According to Roscoe Egger, commissioner of the Internal
Revenue Service, some 35 million Americans have not yet filed their federal
income tax returns for 1983.  Egger describes citizen response to the current
tax scheme as ``the taxpayer's revenge against an unfair system.''"
<HR>
`The Wall Street Journal', (24 Sep 1971):  "A pro-International Monetary Fund
Seminar of eminent economists couldn't agree on what 'money' is or how banks
create it."
<HR>
`Who's Afraid of the I.R.S.?':  "IRS employees are outnumbered by us at a rate
of approximately 1,000 to 1"
<HR>
If Big Brother comes to America, he will not be a fearsome, foreboding figure
with a heart-chilling, omnipresent glare as in _1984_.  He will come with a
smile on his face, a quip on his lips, a wave to the crowd, and a press that
<BR>(a) dutifully reports the suppressive measures he is taking to save the
nation from internal chaos and foreign threat; and
<BR>(b) gingerly questions whether he will be able to succeed.
<BR><CENTER>--Michael Parenti, "Inventing Reality" (1986)</CENTER>
<HR>
nazgul@alphalpha.com (Kee Hinckley):  "I'm not sure which upsets me more: that
people are so unwilling to accept responsibility for their own actions, or that
they are so eager to regulate everyone else's."
<HR>
van Gogt:  "The right to buy weapons is the right to be free."
<HR>
Robin vs. Hardaway: "All acts of the legislature apparently contrary
to natural rights and justice are, in our law and must be in the
nature of things, considered void ... We are in conscience bound to
disobey."
<HR>
State vs. Sutton, 63 Minn. 147, 65 NW 262, 30 L.R.A. 630 Am. St. 459:
"When any court violates the clean and unambiguous language of the
Constitution, a fraud is perpetrated and no one is bound to obey it."
(See 16 Ma. Jur. 2d 177, 178)
<HR>
>Can anyone come up with a specific quote by some spokesperson of the
>gun control lobby that admits to the strategy of gradually imposing a
>lot of "little" restrictions, while pursuing the eventual goal of
>banning guns outright?
<P>
  "This is the first step"
<BR>--U.S. Representative Edward Feighan, referring
to the Brady Bill (which he introduced) at recent House hearings.
<HR>
  "We're going to have to take one step at a time, and the first step is
necessarily -- given the political realities -- going to be very modest...
So we'll have to start working again to strengthen that law, and then again
to strengthen the next law, and maybe again and again.  Right now though,
we'd be satisfied not with half a loaf but with a slice.  Our ultimate goal
-- total control of handguns in the United States -- is going to take
time... The first problem is to slow down the increasing number of handguns
being produced and sold in this country.  The second problem is to get
handguns registered.  And the final problem is to make possession of all
handguns and all handgun ammunition -- except for military, policemen,
licensed security guards, licensed sporting clubs, and licensed gun
collectors -- totally illegal."
<BR>--Pet Shields, Chairman Emeritus, Handgun Control, Inc.
(interview appearing in The New Yorker, July 26, 1976)
<HR>
  "This is not all we will have in future Congresses, but this is a crack
in the door.  There are too many handguns in the hands of citizens.  The
right to keep and bear arms has nothing to do with the Brady Bill."
<BR>--U.S. Representative Craig Washington, at the mark-up hearing on
the Brady Bill, April 10, 1991.
<HR>
  "Handguns should be outlawed.  Our organization will probably take this
stand in time but we are not anxious to rouse the opposition before we get
the other legislation passed."
<BR>--Elliot Corbett, Secretary, National Council For A Responsible Firearms
Policy (interview appeared in the Washington Evening Star on September 19,
1969).
<HR>
  "It is our aim to ban the manufacture and sale of handguns to private
individuals. . .the coalition's emphasis is to keep handguns out of private
possession -- where they do the most harm."
<BR>--Recruiting flyer currently distributed by The Coalition to Stop Gun
Violence, formerly called The National Coalition to Ban Handguns.
<P>
  "Yes, I'm for an outright ban (on handguns)."
<BR>--Pete Shields, Chairman emeritus, Handgun Control, Inc., during a
"60 Minutes" interview.
<P>
  "We are at the point in time and terror where nothing short of a strong
uniform policy of domestic disarmament will alleviate the danger which is
crystal clear and perilously present.  Let us take the guns away from the
people.  Exemptions should be limited to the military, the police, and
those licensed for good and sufficient reasons.  And I would look forward
to the day when it would not be necessary for the policeman to carry a
sidearm."
<BR>--Patrick V. Murphy, former New York City Police Commissioner,
and now a member of Handgun Control's National Committee, during testimony
to the National Association of Citizens Crime Commissions.
<HR>
  "My experience as a street cop suggests that most merchants should not
have guns.  But I feel even stronger about the average person having
them...most homeowners...simply have no need to own guns."
<BR>--Joseph McNamara, HCI spokesman, and former Chief of Police of San Jose,
California.
<HR>
"I don't want to go for confiscation, but that is where we are going."
<BR>--Daryl Gates, Police Chief of Los Angeles, California.
<HR>
 "There may be other things that will happen later... It may not be the
end... the bottom line is what we are seeking now is the Brady Bill."
<BR>--U.S. Representative Charles Schumer, interviewed on CNN Crossfire.
<HR>
  "The Brady Bill is the minimum step Congress should take...we need much
stricter gun control, and eventually should bar the ownership of handguns,
except in a few cases."
<BR>--U.S. Representative William Clay, quoted in the
St. Louis Post Dispatch on May 6, 1991.
<HR>
  "It's only the first step, it's not going to be enough...we've got to go
beyond that, and I hope we'll do it this session of Congress."
<BR>--U.S.  Representative Edward Feighan during an interview on ABC News
Nightline.
<HR>
From: etg002@email.mot.com (Tim Grothause)
Date: 21 Oct 93 15:24:24 GMT
Newsgroups: info.firearms.politics
<P>
I support car ownership although cars can be used to drive drunk.
<BR>I support pharmaceutical manufacture although drugs can be abused.
<BR>I support swimming pool ownership although kids can drown in them.
<BR>I support steak-knife ownership although they can be used in stabbings.
<BR>I support free speech although people say things I don't like to hear.
<BR>I support freedom of religion although cults do the damnedest things.
<BR>I support parenthood although parents can abuse their children.
<BR>I support pregnancy although abortion couldn't happen without it.
<BR>I support penis ownership although they are used in rapes.
<BR>I support gun ownership although guns can be used in crime.
<BR>I support open elections although a moron became President.
<HR>
"A gun in the hands of a free man frightens and angers
the autocrat, not because he fears the power of the gun,
but, rather, the spirit of the man who holds it."
<HR>
""Strict gun laws are about as effective as strict drug laws...It pains me to
say this, but the NRA seems to be right: The cities and states that have the
toughest gun laws have the most murder and mayhem."-Mike Royko, Chicago Tribune
<HR>
"We can't be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary
Americans..."  - President Clinton  (USA TODAY, 11 March 1993, page 2A)
<HR>
Don't think of it as `gun control', think of it as `victim disarmament'.
If we make enough laws, we can all be criminals.
<HR>
In 1966, 3,000 civilian women received defensive handgun training from
Orlando, Florida police. in 1967, rape dropped 88.2% and aggravated
assault and burglary 25%. While rape gradually increased again after
the year-long program ended, five years later the rate was still 13%
below the pre-program level; during that same period rape had
increased 64% nationally, 96.1% in Florida and over 300% in the
immediate area around Orlando.
<HR>
G. Kleck, "Policy Lessons from Recent Gun Control Research,"
_Law and Contemporary Problems_ 49 (No. 1, 1986).
<P>
According to the National Crime Survey administered by the Bureau of the
Census and the National Institute of Justice, it was found that only 12
percent of those who use a gun to resist assault are injured, as are 17
percent of those who use a gun to resist robbery. These percentages are 27 and
25 percent, respectively, if they passively comply with the felon's demands.
Three times as many (36-51% ??? ) were injured if they used other means of
resistance.
<P>
"Crime Control Through the Private Use of Armed Force"
by Gary Kleck, Florida State University
Social Problems  (the journal's name)
Volume 35, No 1, February 1988
<HR>
Kates, Don B.  "Defensive Gun Ownership as a Response to Crime."  __Guns,
Murders, and the Constitution: A Realistic Assessment of Gun Control__.  1990:
Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy,  pp. 17-36)
<P>
Also see:
Cook, "The Relationship between Victim Resistance and Injury in Noncommercial
Robbery."
__Journal of Legal Studies__ 15(1986): 405-6.  (talks about gratuitous
executions of unarmed, non-resisting victims.)
<HR>
In 1976, there were approximately 140 million guns of all types in private
hands.  Between 1968 and 1976, 40 million new guns were made and sold.
<P>
Source:
Bruce-Briggs, B.  "The Great American Gun War."  __The Public Interest 45
(Fall 1976):37-62.
<HR>
About 250 million guns were made and sold in the US in this century.  At least
150 million remain in working order in private hands.  Around 50% of
households own at least one gun; the average number owned is three.
<P>
Source:
Wright, James D.  "Second Thoughts about Gun Control."  __The Public
Interest__ 91 (Spring 1988): 23-39.
<HR>
HCI claims one child per day killed by handgun accidents; the figure from the
National Safety Council is an average of 256 per year for *all* ages,
10-15/year for kids under age 5, and 50-55 per year for kids under age 15.
For comparison, 381 kids under five drowned in pools in 1980, while 13 were
killed by handgun accidents.  432 were killed by fires caused by adults
falling asleep while smoking.  Car accidents take 190 times as many lives as
handgun accidents.
<P>
Source:
Kates, "Gun Accidents."  __Guns, Murders, and the Coinstitution__ 1990:
Pacific Research Institute, pp. 50-52.
<P>
HCI cooks the books by picking a particularly violent year and taking anyone
under 25 to be a "child", thus approaching 365 per year.  It still falls
short, though.
<HR>
To know what our founding fathers really intended, one must read more than
just the Second Amendment.  The following quotes should be interesting and
educational.
<P>
 The second amendment states:  "A  well  regulated militia being necessary
 to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear
 arms shall not be infringed."
<P>
      "The right of the  people  to keep and bear...arms shall not be
      infringed.   A well regulated militia, composed of the body  of
      the  people,  trained  to  arms,  is  the best and most natural
      defense of a free country..."  (James Madison)
<P>
      "I ask, sir, what is the  militia?  It is the whole people,
      except for a few public officials."  (George Mason)
<P>
      "What,  Sir, is the use of a militia?  It  is  to  prevent  the
      establishment  of  a  standing  army, the bane of liberty.  ...
      Whenever Governments mean to invade the rights and liberties of
      the people, they  always  attempt  to  destroy  the militia, in
      order to raise an army upon their ruins." (Rep.  Elbridge Gerry
      of Massachusetts, spoken during floor  debate  over  the Second
      Amendment)
<P>
      "...to disarm the  people-that  was the best and most effective
      way to enslave them."  (George Mason)
<P>
      "Before a standing army can rule, the people  must be disarmed;
      as  they are in almost every kingdom of Europe.    The  supreme
      power  in  America  cannot  enforce  unjust  laws by the sword;
      because  the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute
      a force superior to any bands of regular troops that can be, on
      any pretense,  raised  in the United States" (Noah Webster in a
      pamphlet aimed at swaying Pennsylvania toward ratification)[2]
<P>
      "if raised, whether  they could subdue a Nation of freemen, who
      know how to prize  liberty,  and who have arms in their hands?"
      (Delegate    Sedgwick,  during  the  Massachusetts  Convention,
      rhetorically  asking  if  an  oppressive  standing  army  could
      prevail)[3]
<P>
      "...but  if  circumstances  should  at  any   time  oblige  the
      government  to form an army of any  magnitude,  that  army  can
      never be formitable to the liberties of the people, while there
      is a large body of  citizens, little if at all inferior to them
      in discipline and use of arms,  who stand ready to defend their
      rights..."  (Alexander Hamilton speaking of standing armies  in
      Federalist 29.)
<P>
      "Besides  the  advantage  of being armed, which  the  Americans
      possess  over  the people of almost every other  nation.    ...
      Notwithstanding the  military  establishments  in  the  several
      kingdoms of Europe,  which  are  carried  as  far as the public
      resources will bear, the  governments  are  afraid to trust the
      people  with  arms." (James Madison,  author  of  the  Bill  of
      Rights, in Federalist Paper No.  46.)
<P>
      "Congress have no power to disarm  the  militia.  Their swords,
      and  every  other terrible implement of the  soldier,  are  the
      birthright of an American...  The unlimited power  of the sword
      is not in the hands of either the federal  or state government,
      but, where I trust in God it will ever remain,  in the hands of
      the people"  (Tench Coxe, Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788)
<P>
      "To preserve liberty, it is essential  that  the  whole body of
      people always possess arms, and be taught alike especially when
      young,  how  to use them." (Richard Henery Lee, 1788, Initiator
      of  the  Declaration  of  Independence, and member of the first
      Senate, which passed the Bill of Rights.)[5]
<P>
      "Are we  at  last  brought  to  such  humiliating  and debasing
      degradation, that we  cannot  be  trusted  with  arms  for  our
      defense?  Where is  the  difference  between having our arms in
      possession and under our direction,  and  having them under the
      management of Congress?  If our defense be the _real_ object of
      having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more
      propriety,  or  equal  safety  to  us, as in  our  own  hands?"
      (Patrick Henry)[8]
<P>
      "The best we can hope for  concerning  the  people  at large is
      that they be properly armed."  (Alexander Hamilton)
<P>
      "That  the  said  Constitution  shall  never  be  construed  to
      authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press or
      the  rights of conscience;  or to prevent  the  people  of  The
      United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own
      arms..." (Samuel Adams)[4]
<P>
      "And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are
      not warned from  time  to  time  that  this people preserve the
      spirit  of resistance?   Let  them  take  arms....The  tree  of
      liberty must be refreshed from  time to time, with the blood of
      patriots and tyrants" (Thomas Jefferson)[6]
<P>
      "...the people are confirmed by the next article in their right
      to  keep  and  bear  their private arms" (from article  in  the
      Philadelphia Federal Gazette ten days after the introduction of
      the Bill of Rights)[7]
<P>
      "Guard  with  jealous  attention the public liberty.    Suspect
      everyone  who  approaches  that  jewel.  Unfortunately, nothing
      will preserve  it  but  downright  force.  Whenever you give up
      that force, you are inevitably ruined" (Patrick Henry)[8]
<P>
      [1]  Debates   and  other  Proceedings  of  the  Convention  of
      Virginia,...taken  in  shorthand    by    David   Robertson  of
      Petersburg, at 271, 275 (2d ed.  Richmond, 1805).
<P>
      [2]  Noah Webster, "An Examination into the Leading  Principals
      of  the  Federal Constitution...", in Paul Ford, ed., Pamphlets
      on  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States, at 56(New York,
      1888).
<P>
      [3]  Johnathan  Elliot,  ed.,  Debates  in  the  Several  State
      Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal  Constitution, Vol.2
      at 97 (2d ed., 1888).
<P>
      [4]  Debates  and  Proceedings    in   the  Convention  of  the
      Commonwealth of Massachusetts, at 86-87  (Peirce  & Hale, eds.,
      Boston, 1850)
<P>
      [5] Walter Bennett, ed., Letters from the Federal Farmer to the
      Republican, at 21,22,124(Univ.  of Alabama Press,1975).
<P>
      [6] A quote from Thomas Jefferson  in  a  letter  to William S.
      Smith  in  1787.  Taken  from  Jefferson, On Democracy  20,  S.
      Padover ed., 1939
<P>
      [7] Philadelphia Federal Gazette June 18, 1789 at 2, col.2
<P>
      [8] 3 J.  Elliot,  Debates in the Several State Conventions 45,
      2d ed.  Philadelphia, 1836
<HR>
                 Guns, Murders, and the Constitution
                A Realistic Assessment of Gun Control
                        by Don B. Kates, Jr.
<P>
In this study, Don B. Kates, attorney and criminologist, points out
fallacies behind current gun control proposals; critiques academic research
on gun use, murder, and violence (research upon which most of the anti-gun
lobby mistakenly relies); and reveals aspects of the issue that have not
received full attention from either opponents or proponents of gun control,
including the overlooked implications of gun control on the issue of women
and self-defense.
<P>
* Kates cites a survey by the National Institute of Justice that
  shows, "most criminals are more worried about meeting an armed
  victim than they are about running into the police."  While
  handguns are used in vast numbers of crimes annually, they are used
  more often by good citizens to repel crime (approximately 581,000
  crimes vs. about 645,000 defense uses annually).  This finding is
  even more startling because Kates relied on an exhaustive review of
  anti-gun sponsored studies to compile the gun use figures.
<P>
* Kates also examines national studies, many of them again sponsored
  by the anti-gun lobby, to test the claim that most murders are
  "acquaintance murders," committed by normally law abiding citizens
  who murder because of the accessibility of a gun in a moment of
  anger.  He finds instead that murderers are highly disturbed
  "aberrant individuals, characterized by felony records, alcohol
  and/or drug dependence, and life histories of irrational violence
  against people around them."  These studies reveal that 74.4
  percent of arrested murderers nationally had prior arrests for
  violent felony or burglary and, on average an adult record of a six
  year criminal career with four major felony arrests.
<P>
* The study has important implications for those concerned with issue
  of women and self-defense, women and rape, and the "battered-wife"
  syndrome.  It is not uncommon in most academic research on gun use
  by women, in cases of attack and rape, to find the totally
  insupportable view that "women would invariably be too suprised by
  violent attack to use a handgun in self-defense."  Kates points
  out, on the contrary, that in most instances, the man who beats or
  murders a woman (often even the rapist) is an acquaintance who has
  previously assaulted her on one or more occasions.  She is,
  therefore, prepared and uniquely qualified to anticipate a violent
  attack based on her own experience of previous confrontations.
<P>
  In cases of criminal violence between spouses, 91 percent of the
  victims were women.  Kates cites studies affirming that in the
  overwhelming majority of cases where wife kills husband, she is
  defending herself or the children.  In Detroit, for instance,
  husbands are killed by wives more often than vice versa, yet men
  are far more often convicted for killing a spouse -- because
  three-quarters of wives who killed were not even charged,
  prosecutors having found their acts lawful and necessary to
  preserve their lives or their children's.  Eliminating handguns,
  says Kates, would almost guarantee that the sex of the victims of
  inter-spousal homicide would be female.
<P>
Other major findings of Kates' study include:
<P>
* Differentials in international crime rates are a function of
  socio-cultural and economic factors, not the percentage of gun
  ownership.  In fact, there is an _inverse_ correlation between
  violence rates and the percentage of gun ownership in many foreign
  countries, the most noteworthy being Switzerland and Israel.
<P>
* A handgun ban is not realistically enforceable.  Confiscating guns
  would require house-to-house searches and alienate the very
  individuals whose compliance is essential to the success of any
  regulation.  If gun ownership were prohibited, organized crime
  would step in to provide the firearms that will continue to be
  procured with criminal intent.
<P>
* With respect to police protection as an alternative for gun
  ownership, "the police do _not_ exist to protect the individual
  citizen.  Rather their function is _to deter crime in general_ by
  patrol activities and by apprehension after the crime has
  occurred."  Response to crisis calls in many urban police
  departments is slow due to staff limitations and sheer volume of
  emergency demands.  Given that the individual, and not the police,
  must be responsible for the individual's safety, "the issue is
  whether those individuals should be free to choose gun ownership as
  a means of protecting themselves, their homes, and their families."
<P>
* Controls over handguns but not _rifles and shotguns_ may result in
  the "counterproductive" substitution of these weapons in accident
  and assault situations where long weapons are far more problematic.
  The fact is, says Kates, "for a host of technical reasons, long
  guns are both far more susceptible to accidental discharge than
  handguns and are far more deadly when so discharged -- particularly
  for small children."
<P>
To order a copy of this new study at $5.00/copy, please call (415) 989-0833,
fax (415) 989-2411, or write to 177 Post Street, Suite 500, San Francisco,
CA, 94108.
<HR>
<CENTER>Who is responsible for your safety?</CENTER>
<P>
        Many people feel that the purpose of the police is to protect them.
This is true, however the police forces of this country are unable to
protect you directly, and are not responsible for doing so, in any event.
<P>
   The purpose of the police force is to provide indirect deterrence to crime,
through patrolling the streets, and by apprehending the criminal after
the criminal act has occurred.
<P>
        It would be impossible for the police to protect you, the individual,
at all times.  There are approximately 550,000 peace officers in this
country.  They work three shifts a day, so their number must be divided by
three in order to determine how many are available to patrol the streets.
This number must be halved again to account for the percentage of the force
dedicated to support roles (paperwork, booking, lab work, training, etc.)
This leaves less than 100,000 officers to patrol the streets at any given
time.  These officers are facing ~10,000,000 criminals, that is to say, they
are outnumbered 100 to 1... [figures from Prof. John Bowman, U. of Illinois]
<P>
        Recognizing the logistical impossibility of providing around-the-clock,
full coverage, our legal system has consistently held that the police have
no legal duty to you, the individual.
<P>
        In California, the California Government Code (sections 821,845,846)
reads:
        "A public employee is not liable for an injury caused by his ...
    failure to enforce any enactment [law]. ... Neither a public entity
    not a public employee is liable for failure to ... provide police
    protection ... or to provide sufficient police protection ... [or] for
    injury caused by the failure to make an arrest or the failure to attain
    an arrested person in custody."
<P>
        In Illinois, the Illinois Rev. Statutes (4-102) state the matter more
clearly:
        "Neither a public entity or a public employee [may be sued] for failure
    to provide adequate police protection or service, failure to prevent the
    commission of crimes, and failure to apprehend criminals."
<P>
        In the case of "Riss vs. City of New York (1961)", the Supreme Court
held that even though Ms. Riss had asked the police for help six times
previously, warning them of threats made against her by a rejected suitor,
the police could not be held liable for their failure to prevent him from
throwing acid in her face, disfiguring her for life.
<P>
        In the case of "Warren vs. District of Columbia (1981)", 2 women were
upstairs in their house, and heard their other roommate being attacked
downstairs by rapists.  They called the police, and, when 1/2 hour later
the noise downstairs had stopped for some time (because their roommate had
been beaten into unconsciousness), went downstairs to meet the police.
<P>
        In the words of the Court, "for the next fourteen hours, the women
were held captive, raped, robbed, beaten, forced to commit sexual acts upon
one another, and made to submit to the sexual demands" of their attackers.
Their calls were mishandled by the dispatcher.  The police never came to
their aid...
<P>
        The Court held that the "fundamental principle of American law that
a government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public
services, such as police protection, to any individual citizen" absolved the
police and the city government from any liability in the case.
<P>
        So think about this, as you are debating whether people should be
able to keep weapons for self-defense or not - if you truly believe the police
will protect you when you need it, you are potentially fatally mistaken.
<P>
        In the final analysis, you MUST be responsible for the safety of your
family and yourself - no one else is.
<HR>
More statistics (from A.M. Gottlieb's _Gun_Rights_Fact_Book_, p.59,60,61):
<P>
...According to the _Statistical_Abstract_of_the_United_States_, 1987 edition,
there were only 1,695 firearms accidents that led to deaths in 1983...Over
99.9% of all households with a handgun did not experience a fatal firearms
accident during the year...during 1983,...there were also over 44,000 deaths
caused by car accidents; over 12,000 deaths caused by accidental falls; over
5,000 deaths caused by fires;...over 4,500 deaths due to accidental poisonings
...5,254 deaths from drowning...The rate of accidental gun deaths has also been
decreasing.  In 1970, it was 1.2 per 100,000; in 1983, it was .7 per 100,000...
remember that about 40% of firearms accidents are hunting accidents.  This
means that the already-low accidental gun death rate is reduced even further
when one considers just gun accidents in the home.
<P>
   In 1985, the accidental gun death rate in the house was only .3 per 100,000
people--meaning that there was a total of 800 fatalities....
<HR>
<CENTER>CRIMINALS DON'T WAIT; Why Should You?</CENTER>
<P>
In much of the propaganda in support of a national "waiting
period," it is  alleged that, if such a waiting period/background
check been in place, "John  Hinckley would have been caught",
because "he lied on a federal form" when he  purchased the
revolver used in his attack on President Reagan.
<P>
It is further claimed that Hinckley "would have been in jail,
instead of on his way to Washington, D.C." had such a background
check been conducted.
<P>
These allegations are irrefutably false.
<P>
John Hinckley purchased a total of eight firearms -- two .38
cal. and four .22  cal. revolvers, as well as two rifles -- from
August 1979 to January 1981. The .22 cal. revolver used in his
assault on President Reagan was one of the two he purchased in
October 1980, more than six months before he left for Washington,
D.C. Federal law was diligently complied with by the firearms
dealer who filed  multiple purchase forms with the regional office
of the Bureau of Alcohol,  Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF) after the
purchase.
<P>
That purchase, and all previous purchases, were legal. And they
would have been legal under any "waiting period" scheme ever
devised.
<P>
At the time of his purchase, and all previous purchases, up
until his attack on the President, John Hinckley had no felony
record, he had no recorded history  of mental illness or
commitment (no check involves police inspection of private
conversations with a psychiatrist), and he was using a valid Texas
driver's  license issued May 23, 1979, to make his firearms
purchases.
<P>
The contention that a background check would have "uncovered"
the fact that he  did not physically reside at the address listed
on his drives license is a  willful distortion of the criminal
record check made by local police. To the  contrary, had a check
been run and all criminal records been thorough and  completely
available, they would have confirmed that he was not a prohibited
person and that his last known address was Lubbock, Texas, and he
was listed in the telephone directory.
<P>
Simply put, no detection system ever proposed or ever devised
has mindreading  capabilities. Advocates of the background check
do a gross disservice to the  nation by distorting the truth. No
regulatory "gun control" scheme would have  prevented Hinckley in
his determination to carry out the tragic assassination  attempt
on President Reagan.
<P>
The Hinckley situation turns out to be typical in publicized
shootings. Laurie  Dann, who shot several school children in
Illinois, despite an extensive record of psychiatric problems and
police investigations, had never been committed to  an institution
nor prosecuted for a felony. Her handgun purchases had been
approved following an Illinois background check for a permit to
own and a  waiting period before each handgun acquisition. And
Patrick Purdy, the mass  murderer in the Stockton schoolyard, had
been able to purchase handguns  lawfully in California despite a
15-day day waiting period and background check because his
numerous felony arrests had all  been reduced to misdemeanor
plea-barginings. The leniency of the criminal justice system
allowed him to be  on the streets following a 45 jail sentence for
misusing a gun and resisting  arrest, despite a probation report
noting that he posed a danger to himself and others.
<HR>
<CENTER>PROMISES DOOMED TO FAIL</CENTER>
<P>
Waiting periods fail to reduce crime; yet that failure is used
as an excuse to  impose more restrictive laws. For example,
beginning with two days in 1940,  moving to three days in 1958,
and to five days in 1965, California's waiting  period was raised
to 15 days in 1976, a longer minimum time than any other  state.
But this gradual increase in the waiting period has not reduced
crime.  Between 1965 and 1987, the rate of violent crime per
100,000 persons rose 235%.
<P>
Yet the failure of the current law was used in 1982 as an
argument for passage  of the ill-conceived and ill-fated
Proposition 15 -- the handgun "freeze" and  registration
initiative. California voters saw through this deception and
soundly defeated this Proposition by nearly a 2 to 1 margin.
<P>
Similarly, and ironically, while anti-gunners nationally were
citing Maryland's waiting period as being effective in preventing
numerous sales (the vast  majority of appeals of denials were
granted, indicating that the system was  considerably more
effective at disarming the law-abiding than at disarming
criminals), Maryland "gun control" advocates insisted that the
waiting period  wasn't keeping criminals from getting handguns and
that a ban on the  manufacture and sale of "certain handguns" was
needed.
<P>
While insulting good and honest citizens, the waiting period
scheme will not  keep guns out of the hands of criminals, nor will
it prevent "crimes of  passion". Indeed, according to prominent
anti-gun scholars, Philip J. Cook and  James Blose of Duke
University, "ineligible people are less likely to submit to this
screening process than are eligible people ... because these
people find  ways of circumventing the system entirely ..." (The
Annals, May 1981)
<P>
 That criminals do not obtain their firearms through retail
channels was also  confirmed by a survey of felons conducted by
Profs. James Wright and Peter  Rossi of the University of
Massachusetts, who concluded that retail sales play  a minor and
unimportant role as direct sources of criminals handguns.
<P>
Inaccurate and out-of-date records make citizens more apt than
criminals to be  denied permits. A recent study by the Office of
Technology Assessment, an arm  of Congress, found that almost half
of a sample of criminal history records  that the FBI sent to the
police, state agencies, banks and other such  institutions
throughout the United States, were incomplete or inaccurate. Such
inaccuracies could well lead to the denial of licenses to
thousands of  reputable citizens under a federal registration and
licensing system.
<P>
Ironically, a Chicago newspaper in 1983 submitted six Illinois
licensing  applications forms to the state in the names of such
characters as bank robber  John Dillenger and Cuban revolutionary
Che Guevara. Although Illinois has  computerized registers which
are checked in the course of handgun licensing  investigations,
all the applications were approved except for Vito "the
Godfather" Corleone whose bogus form included a photograph of
actor Marlon  Brando in his film role.
<P>
A waiting period scheme redirects police from crime fighting to
the unrewarding task of snooping into the private lives of
law-abiding citizens buying guns  through licensed firearms
dealers.  Such "crime control" schemes merely make our streets --
and homes -- safer for criminals plying their nefarious trades.  A
November, 1982 "U.S. News & World Report" cover story on crime
included an  article on the police, subtitled: "It's no wonder the
forces in blue don't  catch more crooks.  Their budgets continue
to get tighter and society keeps  giving them extra chores." The
article went on to note that only 45 officers  are actually on
patrol in the streets out of every 100 on duty at a given time.
And the article pointed out that other studies have shown that
police spend  only about 15% of their time dealing with violent
crime.  A waiting  period/background check is a perfect example of
such diversion of police  activity.
<P>
Yet, waiting periods have been soft-peddled as fair and
reasonable, preventive, moderate and acceptable to sportsmen.
Nothing could be further from the truth.  This is a proposal to be
taken seriously. What do these words actually mean?
<HR>
<CENTER>FAIR AND REASONABLE?</CENTER>
<P>
Purely and simply, waiting periods begin the step by step
process where the  Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms
becomes a privilege. [Granted the  wealthy and influential.]
<P>
Under the waiting period licensing procedures, prospective gun
owners are  presumed to be guilty of crime until a police check
into their background  proves their innocence. Such a presumption
is repellent to Anglo-American  jurisprudence.
<P>
Background checks invite serious violations of the right to
privacy. Indeed,  since most persons who seek psychiatric
assistance are not legally  institutionalized, a thorough
background check would require the opening of  hitherto private
medical records to the police. And the leading proponents  would
even extend curbs to those with records of arrest followed by
acquittal,  for minor traffic violations, or even using a gun in
self-defense.
<P>
Ironically, at the same time when there is already uncertainty
about the  propriety of the FBI keeping computerized records in
the National Crime  Information Center on anyone who might
possibly be a criminal, the waiting  period would set into motion
a system of records on law-abiding citizens who  comply with the
waiting period law. Such record keeping amounts to "de facto"
registration, awaiting only a central computer processing
capability for  complete gun registration. In Virginia cities,
California, Illinois, and  Pennsylvania, authorities are using
waiting periods to establish such a system.
<P>
Waiting period schemes impose additional undue burdens on the
law-abiding  citizen: they force the applicant to take time off
from his job, make repeated  trips to a licensed firearms dealer
to legally purchase a firearm, and to pay  for the inconvenience
since the additional paper work costs to the dealers are  passed
along to the consumer.
<P>
And a waiting period/background check costs the citizens of the
state  tremendous amounts of money for useless bureaucratic paper
work and  investigation. A study by Cook and Blose (The Annuls,
May 1981) found that the  FBI's regulations require any background
investigation request be accompanied  by a set of finger prints
and that the state criminal records bureau conduct a  check prior
to the ID Divisions search. And the current turnaround time for
FBI searches is 22 working days. Based on these features, they
determined that a  FBI check is to costly and time consuming.
<P>
In addition, waiting periods encourage obstruction by the
issuing authority. In jurisdictions with waiting periods on the
books, there are countless cases of  "lost" applications, petty
harassments requiring repeated trips to different  offices for
completion of paperwork, fingerprinting and bureaucratic red tape
designed to discourage gun ownership.
<P>
 In New Jersey, a frequently cited state by anti-gunners, for
one year police  refused to issue any permits because the FBI was
refusing to do fingerprint  checks on civil matters. Authorities
there regularly take 90 days -- and occasionally much longer --
to process an application, even though the statute  requires it be
done within 30 days. Moreover, thousands of applications have
been rejected simply because the police didn't want a citizen to
have a  handgun, even though there was no criminal or mental
record to justify  rejection under the law. This is similar to
Broward County, Florida, where a  large percentage of rejected
applications were based on traffic citations  rather than valid
bases for denials.
<P>
Such discretionary power by police is opposed by the American
people because it is abhorrent in a society built on freedom. In a
nationwide survey by Decision  Making Information, Inc., in 1978
the question was asked: "Would you favor or  oppose a law giving
the police the power to decide who may own a firearm?" By a margin
of more than 2-1 the public was found to be against the power
police  inevitably acquire through waiting period/licensing
legislation. The U.S.  Senate reflected the will of the people in
1985, rejecting a waiting period by  a 3-1 margin.
<HR>
<CENTER>A CRIME PREVENTION TOOL?</CENTER>
<P>
Almost half the states -- including 64 percent of the population
-- require background checks/waiting periods on all handgun
transfers. But,  according to Cook and Blose, "there has been no
convincing empirical  demonstration that a police check on handgun
buyers reduces violent crime  rates." (The Annuals, May, 1981)
Indeed, a comparison of states with added or  extended waiting
periods from 1965 to 1987 reveals the ineffectiveness of such
"crime control" experiments. (See Table B)
<P>
Based on the 1987 FBI Uniform Crime Reports, there would appear
to be an  inverse relationship between gun availability and
violent crime. Data from the  state with the greatest number of
local jurisdictions with waiting periods  and/or licensing
requirements -- Virginia -- make clear waiting periods and/or
licensing have no impact, even  allowing for the urban nature of
most regulatory jurisdictions. (Table C)
<P>
<PRE>
                          TABLE B
                                       1965    1987    % change
                                       ----     ----    -------
     United States                      5.1     8.3     + 62.7
     California (from 2 to 15 days)     4.7    10.6     +125.5
     Connecticut (from 1 to 14 days)    1.6     4.9     +206.0
     Washington (from 2 to 3 days)      2.2     5.6     +154.5
     Wisconsin (from 0 to 2 days)       1.5     3.5     +133.3
    *Rhode Island (3 days)              2.1     3.5     + 66.6
    *New York (from unlimited
                   to 6 months)         4.6    11.3     +145.6
   * New/Additional States

   Homicide rate comparisons for the United States as a whole per
   100,000 persons and states with waiting periods for the years
   1965 to 1987 are revealing. (Source: FBI Uniform Crime Reports)
-------------------------------------------------------------------

                          TABLE C

                          Violent                     Aggravated
                           Crime    Homicide  Robbery   Assault
------------------------  -------   --------  ------- ----------
Virginia as a  whole       268.9      7.4      105.7     155.7

MSA (Metropolitan
     Statistical Areas)    322.2      8.0      140.6     173.5

MSA (Cities with waiting
     periods or permits)   472.2     12.9      216.7     242.5

MSA (Cities without
     waiting periods
     or police permits)    369.8      8.8      161.3     199.7
</PRE>
<P>
The 1987 violent crime rate per 100,000 persons for Virginia,
the state's  Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas (SMSA), and
Virginia cities with local  waiting periods and/or police permits,
illustrates the higher rates in the  latter. (Sources : FBI
Uniform Crime Reports 1987; BATF State Laws and  Published
Ordinances, 1986-1987).
<HR>
Willis Booth, a former chief with 40 years of law enforcement
experience and a  lobbyist for the Florida Police Chiefs
Association, succinctly expressed  Florida law enforcement's
assessment of waiting periods and background checks:  "I think any
working policeman will tell you that the crooks already have guns.
If a criminal fills out an application...he's the biggest,
dumbest, crook I've  ever seen." In 1987, the Florida State
Legislature subsequently repealed all  background check ordinances
in the state.
<P>
 Indeed, a study of waiting periods by professors Joseph P.
Magaddino and  Marshall H. Medoff of California State University
at Long Beach found them to  be totally useless in curbing crime.
<P>
Their finding reconfirmed the results of multiple regression
analyses by  Matthew DeZee of Florida State University, who favors
restrictive gun laws, and by Douglas Murray of the University of
Wisconsin. They found that waiting  periods, either alone or in
combination with other gun laws, were not effective in reducing
violent crime or gun related criminal violence.
<P>
Even anti-gunners generally fail to claim "crime control"
effects for waiting  periods, instead citing statistics on the
number of lawful handgun transfers  denied by state authorities.
They fail to cite drops in crime, or to pretend  those denied
lawful access to handguns do not acquire handguns by other means,
or use other weapons to commit crimes. And, despite allegations
that those  denied are criminals "caught" by a background check,
only a fraction of a  percent of the time are such denials
accompanied by so much as a recommendation for prosecution. By
claiming that denials show that the law is working, the  other
side would, logically, think a denial of 100% of applications was
100%  "effective" -- but not at stopping crime.
<HR>
<CENTER>PREVENTS CRIMES OF PASSION?</CENTER>
<P>
Proponents contend "waiting periods" will sharply reduce the
number of handgun  murders committed annually. This information is
based on misconstrued and  outdated FBI data showing 70 percent of
all murders involve people who know  each other -- relatives,
friends, acquaintances, or neighbors.
<P>
These FBI categories are misleading: Acquaintances can be, as
Harvard Professor Mark Moore has said, "old but familiar enemies,"
"neighbors" is defined on the  basis of where people live, not
whether the are friends, enemies or strangers;  and predatory
felonies are often committed in criminals' neighborhood. The area
is familiar; escape is easy; the criminal doesn't stand out as he
might in a  socially or racially different environment; and he can
count on fear of  retaliation to limit cooperation of victims or
witnesses with the police. It  was noted, for example, that 80% of
Washington D.C.'s murders involved  acquaintances -- _and_ the
crimes _all_ involved drug trafficking.
<P>
It must be emphasized that murder, including "domestic" and
"acquaintance"  murder, is for the most part not committed by
decent, law-abiding citizens  catalyzed into "murders" by the
presence of firearms.
<P>
 Indeed, FBI Uniform Crime Reports detailing the characteristics
of murders  (until 1975), studies by the Chicago police, the
Senate Subcommittee on  Juvenile Delinquency, and the annual
Homicide Analysis by the New York City  Police, show that 70 - 80
percent of suspected murders have criminal careers of long
standing. There have been an average of six arrests per suspect,
half of  them for violent crimes. Victims have similar records
about 50 percent of the  time.
<P>
Waiting periods are further based on the false assumption that
newly purchased  firearms are used in murders and other violent
crimes. Yet the Police  Foundation's "Firearm Abuse" (1977) found
that only 2.1 percent of handguns  traced to all crime were less
than a month old. And a month is twice as long as any state's
waiting period.
<P>
In fact, an analysis by James D. Wright of the University of
Massachusetts  -More- suggests that 70 to 80 percent of gun
purchasers already own firearms.  In the  unlikely event that
these individuals would chose to commit a violent crime, a
"waiting period" would be irrelevant.
<P>
In addition, the most frequent time for argument-precipitated
murders is during the time from 10 p.m. to 3 a.m. time frame, when
gun shops are closed. And  studies by the FBI and New York City
Police Department (NYPD) indicate that  about 50 percent of
murderers are under the influence of alcohol and/or drugs  at the
time of the murder -- conditions under which the sale of firearms
is  already prohibited by law.
<P>
Waiting periods assume that violent people, deprived of ready
access to a  handgun will not kill. Yet Dr. Marvin Wolfgang, the
noted criminologist who  studied homicide in Philadelphia and
published "Patterns in Criminal Homicide", found that the nature
of homicide had little to do with the presence or absence of
firearms. He noted: "It is the contention of this observer that
few  homicides due to shootings would be avoided merely if a
firearm were not  immediately present, and that the offender would
select some other weapon the  achieve the same destructive goal.
Probably only in those cases where a felon  kills a police
officer, or vise versa, would homicide be avoided in the absence
of a firearm."
<P>
Crimes of "passion" bring into play the plethora of curious
objects used to  commit murder, from brooms to ceramic lamps, and
especially knives, according  to a list of murder weapons used in
San Francisco and New York between 1973 and 1983.
<P>
 The waiting period supposes that the crime of passion is some
sudden impulse  which will pass. But a Nation Institute of Justice
(NIJ) study reveals that the victims of family violence often
suffer repeated problems from the same person  for months or even
years, and if not successfully resolved, such incidents can
eventually result in serious injury or death. Indeed, a study
conducted in  Kansas City indicates that in 90 percent of spouse
slaying, there had been at  least one prior police call regarding
wife beating and in 50 percent of such  murders police had been
called at least 5 times. Of course, part of the problem is that
arrests are seldom made on such calls, although recent research
shows  that arrests, coupled with support for the victim, may
reduce repeated  beatings.
<P>
The tragic murder of John Lennon, and the assassination attempt
on President  Reagan renewed the cry for stricter "waiting
periods". Ironically, Lennon's  murder purchased his gun in
Hawaii, a state requiring permits to purchase,  registration and
banning the so-called "Saturday Night Special," almost six  weeks
before committing the crime. And President Reagan's's assailant
John  Hinckley could have legally purchased firearms under a
"waiting period scheme."
<HR>
<CENTER>ACCEPTABLE TO SPORTSMEN?</CENTER>
<P>
Already, strict gun laws are placed on the nation's 60 million
law-obedient  firearms owners under the Gun Control Act of 1968
(GCA '68), which requires  licensing of manufactures, importers,
and dealers; prohibits almost all  interstate transfers of
handguns and requires interstate transfers of rifles  and shotguns
to be through licensed dealers and in compliance with the laws of
the states where the dealers operates and where the buyer resides,
and even  prohibits relatives from giving firearms to family
members living in different  states; prohibits the sale of arms or
ammunition by a dealer or anyone else to, or the acquisition or
transportation by, felons, persons under felony  indictment,
fugitives, drug addicts, mental incompetents, illegal aliens,
dishonorably discharged veterans, those who have renounced their
U.S.  citizenship, and employees of all such persons; requires
licensees to keep  records available for BATF inspection;
prohibits receipt or possession of guns  by convicts, dishonorably
discharged veterans, illegal aliens, the insane,  persons who have
renounced their citizenship; and prohibits the importation of
many firearms and parts from abroad.
<P>
Yet, these laws have failed to reduce crime, which is much
higher than when the GCA '68 took effect. The solution, according
to gun control fanatics, is to  impose even more restrictive laws
on the law-abiding.
<P>
A current proposal would have the federal government ask local
authorities to  run background checks in seven days with all the
costs to be borne by local  departments with the added risk of
federal prosecution if the local police  retained the application
in their files, and with no standards for approval or  denial, and
no provision for appeal.
<P>
 In addition, Handgun Control Inc., has promised to sue any
municipality if  police fail to prevent a transfer because they
did not conduct a through enough background investigation and the
handgun was then used in a crime. Handgun  Control Inc., has
claimed to have won at least one such case in the  Philadelphia
area, where there is a waiting period and police conduct
background checks.
<P>
Clearly, restrictive gun laws only penalize the nation's
law-abiding firearms  owners for the violent acts committed by a
small number of criminals who commit a disproportionately large
number of crimes. And, regrettably, "gun control" in any form
diverts and wastes scarce resources which could instead be used to
 support genuine crime control measures.
<P>
The only effect of a waiting period is to deny someone the
ability to defend  himself or herself.  In San Leandro,
California, a female single parent was  forced to endure 15 days
of terror at the hands of a maniacal neighbor while  she awaited
the completion of the background check.  The day after she was
allowed to pick up her handgun, she killed her attacker with it.
<P>
Statistically, a waiting period would seem more likely to
interfere with the  estimated 650,000 citizens who use handguns
for protection each year than the  roughly 100,000 criminals who
repeatedly misuse handguns -- generally acquired  by theft or from
fences, drug dealers, and the black market.
<P>
Yet the Wright-Rossi study found that three quarters of the
convicted felons  were able to get their most recent handgun
within a day -- despite long  criminal records.
<P>
As the Wall Street Journal noted shortly after the Lennon
murder: "... the  sudden hue and cry for more gun control at such
times is a kind of  cop-out,  the sort of cop-out that is part of
the [crime] problem in America.
<P>
"The country knows there is something wrong. Too many are
turning to crimes of  violence. The notion that this can be
changed by controlling guns, we worry,  may be an excuse for
avoiding the hard work of making our decrepit criminal  justice
system start to function, and the even harder work of buttressing
what  used to be called the nations moral fiber."
<HR>
<CENTER>SENTENCE THE CRIMINAL?</CENTER>
<P>
It is clear that the way to curb violent crime is to punish the
criminal.  Studies suggest that 75 - 85 percent of urban violence
is perpetrated by career criminals, and 30 - 35 percent of robbery
and murder is committed by persons on some form of conditional
release, -- bail, probation, suspended sentence. To  combat crime
America must address this problem of recidivism and the "revolving
door" system of justice.
<P>
Over a ten year period after the 1975 adoption of a mandatory
penalty for using a firearm to commit a violent crime, Virginia's
homicide rate fell 35.6 percent and robbery declined 23.6 percent.
A 1974 Arizona law saw homicide fall 21.8  percent and robbery
32.2 percent. While the West South Central region of the  United
States saw robbery rise 32.2 percent, respectively, a 1975
Arkansas  mandatory penalty statute viewed a 24.7 percent decrease
in homicide and a 9.7  -More- percent decrease in robbery. South
Carolina recorded an astounding 36.7 percent decrease in homicide
and 8.8 percent decrease in robbery after adopting a  mandatory
penalty.
<P>
Clearly, instead of imposing further penalties -- in the form of
"waiting  periods" and additional assaults on the civil rights of
law-abiding gun owners  and gun purchasers, the proper approach is
to implement mandatory punishment  for the criminal abuser of
firearms.
<P>
The violent crime rate has decreased in part since 1980, because
the number of  persons in American prisons has increased from
315,000 in 1980 to 514,133 in  1986.
<P>
The remedy, or any  appropriate penalty, must be after the
commission of an  offense if the presumption of innocence is to be
preserved, indeed, if  democracy itself is to survive.
<P>
Printed from NRA publication IL3N1064 "The Case Against Waiting
Periods"
<HR>
<P>
RKBA.016 - Is the United States the most violent nation?
           Version 1.1 (last changed on 91/03/21 at 23:05:58)
<P>
DESCRIPTION
<BR>===========
<BR>A spate of media "claims" implying that the United States is the highest
crime nation in the world has been observed in the media recently. However, if
we were to look at homicide, rape, and larceny (burgalry, robbery, etc.) we find
a quite different story.
<P>
In homicide, the US is number 11, with a murder rate of 9.60 per 100,000.
The nearest European country in the Netherlands, with a homicide rate of
7.15 per 100,000. However, elimination of high crime inner city rates
pushes the per capita down to 3.77, below such countries as Luxemburg
(5.25), Finland (4.88), West Germany (4.47), Scotland (3.82), and somewhat
barely above Sweden (3.36).
<P>
Places such as Norway are not known to have massive illegal aliens, drug
misuse problems, or large cultural inhomogeneities.
<P>
Of even more interest is the TREMENDOUSLY larger per capita rape numbers
in the "non-violent peace loving" European counties. The Unites States at 26.30
is below such countries as Australia (90.82), West Germany (77.49), New Zealand
(65.73), Netherlands (56.00), Scotland (44.69), Denmark (41.06), Sweden
(40.52), Austria (30.42).
<P>
In the category of larceny (robbery, burglary etc.), the United States is
below Italy and New Zealand, and somewhat above Denmark, West Germany,
Scotland, Sweden, Austria, and England & Wales.
<P>
<P>
CONCLUSION
<BR>==========
<BR>The United States is NOT the most violent country in the world. While high
in homicide, there are several European nations that have similar per
capita homicide rates, without the presence of large scale drug problems
or immigrant & illegal alien situations.
<P>
In terms of rape, the US lags TREMENDOUSLY behind some of the "civilized"
and "non-violent" European countries.
<P>
In larceny (burglary, robbery), the US is again not a leader.
<P>
In short, given all the problems that the US has that European countries do
NOT have, the US is surprisingly non-violent (relatively speaking).
<P>
<PRE>
                H O M I C I D E

                             PER         ABSOLUTE
RANK  COUNTRY                100,000     NUMBERS
====  =====================  =======     ========
  1   Lesotho                140.81       1,592
  2   Bahamas                 22.88          45
  3   Guyana                  22.21         610
  5   Netherlands Antilles    12.47          29
  6   Iraq                    11.94       1,243
  7   Sri Lanka               11.92       1,597
  8   Cyprus                  11.11          71
  9   Trinidad & Tobago       10.41         113
 10   Jamaica                 10.25         205
 11   United States            9.60      18,155
 12   Kuwait                   9.18          78
 13   Tanzania                 8.98       1,295
 14   Kenya                    8.66       1,047
 15   Madagascar               8.14         692
 16   Burma                    8.06       2,304
 17   Venezuela                7.19         834
 18   Netherlands              7.15         964
 19   Chile                    6.69         723
 20   St.Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla  6.67           4
 21   Jordan                   6.06         103
 22   Syria                    5.52         331
 23   Luxembourg               5.25          21
 24   Mali                     5.02         251
 25   Finland                  4.88         229
 26   Malawi                   4.57         183
 27   West Germany             4.47       2,771
 28   Monaco                   4.40           1
 29   Sierra Leone             4.00         120
 30   Sconand                  3.82         199
 31   Libya                    3.77          85
 32   Egypt                    3.45       1,241
 33   India                    3.40      19,480
 34   Sweden                   3.36         275
 35   Austria                  3.06         229
 36   Italy                    2.95       1,643
 37   Singapore                2.77          62
 38   Nigeria                  2.75       1,510
 39   Australia & Papua N. G.  2.73         411
 40   France                   2.70       1,429
 41   Philippines              2.68       1,106
 42   Hong Kong                2.59         110
 43   Malaysia                 2.49         298
 44   Peru                     2.44         376
 45   England & Wales          2.24       1,102
 46   Denmark                  2.03         102
 47   Japan                    1.74       1,912
 48   New Zealand              1.51          46
 49   South Korea              1.33         460
 50   Zaire                    1.19         286
 51   Molocco                  1.11         199
 52   Ivory Coast              1.09          63
 53   Solomon Islands          1.08           2
 54   Greece                   0.87          77
 55   Indonesia                0.87       1,120
 56   Uganda                   0.83          83
 57   Fiji                     0.71           4
 58   Spain                    0.67         233
 59   Norway                   0.50          20

----------------------  R A P E  -----------------
                               PER         ABSOLUTE
RANK  COUNTRY                  100,000     NUMBERS
====  =======================  =======     ========
   1  Australia                 90.82       13,674
   2  West Germany              77.49       48,075
   3  Solomon Islands           76.96          142
   4  Venezuela                 66.84        7,754
   5  New Zealand               65.73        2,000
   6  Bahamas                   62.02          122
   7  Libya                     56.58        1,277
   8  Netherlands               56.00        7,554
   9  England & Wales           50.20       24,698
  10  Lesotho                   49.53          560
  11  Kuwait                    48.35          411
  12  Netherlands Antilles      46.96          109
  13  Scotland                  44.69        2,330
  14  Denmark                   41.06        2,068
  15  Sweden                    40.52        3,313
  16  Guyana                    34.50          264
  17  Hong Kong                 32.97        1,401
  18  Austria                   30.42        2,274
  19  Peru                      29.14        4,482
  20  St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla  26.67           16
  21  Monaco                    26.41            6
  22  United States             26.30       40,168
  23  France                    26.19       13,828
  24  Fiji                      26.07          147
  25  Lebanon                   25.93          778
  26  Trinidad & Tobago         25.23          274
  27  Jamaica                   24.95          499
  28  Norway                    23.43          931
  23  Chile                     22.51        2,362
  30  Uganda                    16.48        1,648
  31  South Korea               13.90        4,854
  32  Morocco                   12.69        2,284
  33  Spain                     12.21        4,310
  34  Italy                     11.87        6,605
  35  Malawi                    11.45          458
  36  Tanzania                  10.31        1,487
  37  Japan                     10.30       11,338
  38  Kenya                      9.76        1,180
  39  Finland                    9.44          443
  40  Luxembourg                 9.25           37
  41  Jordan                     7.71          131
  42  Sierra Leone               7.47          224
  43  Zaire                      5.85        1,404
  44  Mali                       5.60          280
  45  Malaysia                   4.72          564
  46  Burma                      3.79        1,085
  47  Singapore                  3.67           82
  48  Iraq                       3.65          380
  49  Madagascar                 3.25          276
  50  Nigeria                    2 60        1,428
  51  Greece                     2.31          203
  52  Sri Lanka                  1.53          205
  53  Philippines                1.08          447
  54  Indonesia                  0.90        1,162
  55  Cyprus                     0.63           40
  56  Syria                      0.52           31
  57  India                      0.51        2,919
  58  Egypt                      0.34          122
  59  Ivory Coast                0.17           10
</PRE>
<P>
Sources: BWR84       #####
<HR>
Re:  Supreme Court interpretations of the Second Amendment.
<P>
The Court most recently mentioned the Second Amendment in dicta
in United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez, 110 S. Ct. 1839 (1990).
Verdugo-Urquidez was a citizen and resident of Mexico, and a drug
dealer.  The Mexican police arrested him in Mexico, and brought
him to the U.S., where the U.S. cops arrested him.  With the
permission of the Mexican police, the U.S. narcs searched his
residence (in Mexico), and found documentary evidence detailing
drug shipments to the U.S.  Verdugo-Urquidez moved for
suppression of that evidence as a violation of the Fourth
Amendment prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures.
<P>
The question for the court:  Does the Fourth Amendment apply to
non-resident non-citizens outside the U.S.?  The answer:  no.
<P>
The court's reasoning:  The Fourth Amendment protects the right
of "the people" to be secure against unreasonable searches and
seizures.  Who are "the people"?  According to Chief Justice
Rehnquist, the phrase "the people" was a term of art used by the
Framers.  Rehnquist wrote:
<P>
     The Second Amendment protects "the right of the people
     to keep and bear Arms," and the Ninth and Tenth
     Amendments provide that certain rights and powers are
     retained by and reserved to "the people."  See also
     U.S. Const., Amdt. 1, ("Congress shall make no law ...
     abridging ... the right of the people peaceably to
     assemble"); Art. I, s 2, cl. 1 ("The House of
     Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen
     every second Year by the People of the several States")
     (emphasis added).  While this textual exegesis is by no
     means conclusive, it suggests that "the people"
     protected by the Fourth Amendment, and by the First and
     Second Amendments, and to whom rights and powers are
     reserved in the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, refers to a
     class of persons who are part of a national community
     or who have otherwise developed sufficient connection
     with this country to be considered part of that
     community.  110 S. Ct. at 1061.
<P>
Since Verdugo-Urquidez is not part of "the people," he is not
protected by the Fourth Amendments (nor, apparently, by the
First, Second, Ninth, or Tenth).
<P>
The Supreme Court therefore views the words "the people" in the
Second Amendment to have the same meaning as in the First,
Fourth, Ninth, and Tenth Amendments.  If "the people" really
meant the right of states to maintain a militia (as suggested by
J. Sultan), then we would be left with the absurd notion that
only the states have the right to peaceably assemble, only the
states have the right to be secure in their persons and property,
etc.  The Supreme Court's position is indisputable:  the Second
Amendment protects the individual right to bear arms.
Also instructive is the Report of the Subcommittee on the
Constitution of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States
Senate, 97th Congress, Second Session (February 1982):
<P>
     The conclusion is thus inescapable that the history,
     concept, and wording of the second amendment to the
     Constitution of the United States, as well as its
     interpretation by every major commentator and court in
     the first half-century after its ratification,
     indicates that what is protected is an individual right
     of a private citizen to own and carry firearms in a
     peaceful manner.
<P>
This hardly supports J. Sultan's premise that an individual right
is "universally unaccepted."
<P>
Anti-gunners frequently use the "big lie" technique referred to
by D. Malbuff, to the effect that "the Supreme Court has
consistently ruled that the Second Amendment does not apply to
individual citizens; it only protects the right of the National
Guard to go duck hunting."  Here is a nutshell history of Supreme
Court rulings on the Second Amendment:
<P>
United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939).  Mr. Miller was a
very bad dude, charged with a laundry list of heinous crimes.
They threw the book at him, including carrying a sawed-off
shotgun, a violation of the National Firearms Act of 1934.  When
his case came up before the Supreme Court, Miller had skipped; he
was a fugitive.  No lawyer appeared to argue his side of the
case; only the government lawyers showed up.  (Some fair trial,
huh?)  Now, if the Second Amendment only protected the state
militia, the case would have been easy.  All the court would have
had to do was say that Miller could not own a gun because he was
not a member of the militia, end of discussion.  But they didn't
say that.  Why not?  In effect, they conceded that the Second
Amendment protects an individual right, but still said that it
was constitutional for the government to prohibit sawed-off
shotguns.  Their reasoning?
<P>
     Certainly it is not within judicial notice that this
     weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment
     or that its use could contribute to the common defense.
<P>
There are three interesting things about the court's statement.
First, of course it was not in their notice; nobody was present
to bring it to their notice!  Second, had a knowledgeable
advocate been present, he would have brought to the court's
notice that short-barrelled shotguns have long been used as
ordinary military equipment, from Revolutionary War blunderbusses
to luparas in the Spanish-American War to trench-cleaners in The
War To End All Wars.  Subsequently, U.S. troops used sawed-off
shotguns in World War II, and "tunnel rats" used them in Vietnam.
<P>
Third, and most important, is that the court seems to be saying
that the Second Amendment only protects the right of individual
citizens to have "ordinary military equipment."  Very
interesting.  What are semi-automatic "assault rifles" if not
ordinary military equipment?  When California's assault rifle ban
reaches the Supreme Court, Miller will present a real problem for
the anti-gunners.
<P>
There are no other Supreme Court cases in the 20th Century, but
there are dozens of state cases that support the individual right
to bear weapons (not "sporting goods").  See, for example,
State v. Swanton, 129 Ariz. 131 (Ct. App. 1981) ("[T]he term
'arms' as used means such arms as are recognized in civilized
warfare. . . . ")
<P>
State v. Kessler, 289 Or. 359 (1980) ("[T]he terms 'arms' most
likely would include only the modern day equivalents of the
weapons used by colonial militiamen.")
<P>
also
<P>
State ex rel. City of Princeton v. Buckner, 377 S.E. 2d 139
(W.Va. 1988)
Barnett v. State, 72 Or. App. 585 (1985)
State v. Delgado, 298 Or. 395 (1984)
City of Lakewood v. Pillow, 180 Colo. 20 (1972)
City of Las Vegas v. Moberg, 82 N.M. 626 (Ct. App. 1971)
<P>
and dozens more.
<P>
There were few, if any, gun control laws on the books until after
the Civil War.  Then, suddenly, every Southern state had a law
prohibiting newly-freed slaves from owning guns.  (Guess why?  It
was getting damned dangerous for the Klansmen to lynch blacks.)
The Fourteenth Amendment rendered those "Black Codes"
unconstitutional, so the Southerners figured out some backdoor
methods.  One was banning cheap guns (the term Saturday Night
Special has its origin in the racial slur "Niggertown Saturday
Night," which was similar to "Father's Day in Harlem" or "Chinese
Fire Drill.")  Another was a permit system/waiting period/
background check, requiring approval of the sheriff, who usually
just happened to be a Klansman.
<P>
United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542 (1876).  In Louisiana, a
hundred or so good old boys got word that there were some "uppity
niggers" having an organizational meeting, to try to protect
themselves against constant attacks by white gangs.  The good old
boys got together and crashed the party.  They took away the
Negroes' guns, and then proceeded to murder them.  They were
charged with conspiring to deprive their victims of their
constitutional rights to assemble, and to bear arms.
<P>
The court ruled that (1) the First and Second Amendments did not
apply to the states, (2) the Fourteenth Amendment only prohibited
the State from depriving the people of their rights, and the good
old boys were not agents of the State, and (3) the controlling
Enforcement Acts protected only those rights "granted by the
Constitution."  The court said that the rights to assemble and to
bear arms were fundamental rights.  They were not "granted" by
the Constitution, but were inalienable; they were rights with
which the victims were "endowed by their Creator."  Therefore,
the rights were not protected by the Enforcement Acts, and the
KKK boys literally got away with murder!  (This is a case proudly
cited by people who call themselves "liberals," instead of the
racist scum that they really are.)
<P>
Presser v. Illinois, 116 U.S. 252 (1886).  Presser had organized
a society of German immigrants (Lehr und Wehr Verein) who
believed that regular military drill was an important part of
good citizenship.  Four hundred of them paraded through downtown
Chicago, carrying rifles.  Presser was charged with parading
without a license, and organizing and maintaining a private army.
He claimed that the Illinois statutes violated his rights under
the First Amendment (freedom of assembly) and the Second
Amendment (right to bear arms).  The court ruled that the Bill of
Rights applied only to the federal government, not to the States,
and that any State could prohibit free speech, free exercise of
religion, assembly, bearing of arms, etc.
<P>
In Presser, the Court never mentioned the individual right to
bear arms; the case dealt only with an armed organization.
<P>
Miller v. Texas, 153 U.S. 535 (1894).  Texas had a law forbidding
the carrying of weapons, and authorizing arrest without warrant
for any violation.  Miller claimed this violated the Second
Amendment and the Fourth Amendment.  The Court again ruled that
"the restrictions of this amendments operate only upon the
Federal power."  But they admitted that it was possible that the
Fourteenth Amendment might cause the Bill of Rights to apply to
the States as well.  However, Miller did not raise his objection
early enough.  "If the Fourteenth Amendment limited the power of
the States as to such rights . . . we think it was fatal to this
claim that it was not set up in the trial court."  Id. at 538.
<P>
Subsequent to Cruikshank, Presser, and Miller v. Texas, the Court
ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment does in fact cause the Bill
of Rights to apply to the States.  In effect, those three cases
have been invalidated.  To believe otherwise is to believe that
the States can restrict religion, speech, and assembly, to
execute unreasonable searches and seizures, to deny jury trials,
or to infringe the right to bear arms.
<P>
An important note:  the Court never doubted for an instant that
the right to bear arms was not an individual right which the
Federal government could not infringe.  These cases never talked
about the Second Amendment being a right of States to organize
militias.  It has always been assumed that the right to bear arms
is a right of individual citizens to bear arms.
Perhaps the Supreme Court's most infamous decision was Dred Scott
v. Sandford, 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393 (1857).  Chief Justice Taney
said that Negroes could not be "citizens," because if they were,
they would have the right to vote, to assemble, to speak on
political subjects, to travel freely, and "to keep and carry arms
wherever they went."  Id. at 417.  Taney, the classic racist,
found that prospect inconceivable.  It is noteworthy, though,
that the Supreme Court considered the right to carry guns
wherever they go an individual right of every citizen, along with
voting, speaking, assembling.  "Nor can Congress deny the people
the right to keep and bear arms, nor the right to trial by jury,
nor compel anyone to be a witness against himself. . . ."  Id. at
450.  Obviously, "the people" refers to all citizens, not the
states or militia, or the rest of the sentence becomes
meaningless.  See Verdugo-Urquidez, supra.
<P>
What the Second Amendment protects is an individual right to bear
military weapons, not for hunting, not for target shooting, not
for repelling foreign invaders, but for the purpose of preventing
oppression of the people by their own government.  The
historical, textual, structural, doctrinal, prudential, judicial,
and legislative evidence is devastating.  Sultan's claim that
this is "universally unaccepted" is as ludicrous as Saddam
Hussein's claim of victory over the Great Satan.
<P>
Any intelligent person who wishes to study the matter seriously
should begin with S. Levinson, The Embarrassing Second Amendment,
99 Yale L.J. 637.  Professor Levinson (University of Texas) is a
devout liberal (as am I) who set out to prove once and for all
that the Second Amendment does not protect an individual right
(etc. ad nauseam, per Sultan).  To his great embarrassment (hence
the title), he found overwhelming evidence to the contrary.  He
had the academic integrity to admit it, for which he deserves
great admiration.  He does not like gun ownership, any more than
some people like flag-burning or organized religion, but he
recognizes that the individual right exists, whether one likes it
or not.
<HR>
RKBA.015 - Are firearms a leading cause of death of children?
           Version 1.1 (last changed on 91/03/15 at 12:21:18)
<P>
DESCRIPTION
<BR>===========
<BR>In some recent and lurid accounts in the media, the claim has been advanced
that the "leading cause of death among children" is firearms. Some variations
of this claim state that is the "leading cause of death of young black males".
<P>
Well, this just does not sound right. In turning to factual sources, I am
hampered by not having information that is up to date as I like. However,
rather than wait, I have decided to post the information I do have, which
in terms of "completeness", is based on 1985 data.
<P>
I have checked 1990 data, which only gives death counts on a per capita
basis without segragation by age groups. However, there are NO significant
changes in the per capita ratios, which is a very strong indication that the
1985 figures can be rationally extrapolated.
<P>
As later information is available, I will update this posting.
<P>
<P>
In 1985:
<P>
27,607 children (ages under 18) died.
<P>
11,927 children died from all accidents.
<P>
 6,639 children died in motor accidents.
<P>
 1,613 children died by drowning.
<P>
 1,249 children died from fires and/or burns.
<P>
 1,445 children died from miscellaneous/other causes.
<P>
   637 children died from firearms.
       (429 children died from ACCIDENTS involving firearms)
       (208 children (ages 14 and under) were murdered by firearms.)
<P>
An additional 888 "children" ages 15 through 19 were murdered by firearms.
<P>
The breakdown in homicides group in 5 year groups, and the group 15-19 spans
what is clearly a child's age (15,16, and 17??), and ages that are not children.
<P>
SUMMARY
<BR>=======
<P>
Of the 27,607 deaths of children (< 18) in 1985, 637 children died from
firearms (both accidents and homicides). Yet, ten times MORE children,
6,639, died in motor accident alone. THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO WAY THAT
FIREARMS EVEN BEGIN TO APPROACH BEING A LEADING CAUSE OF DEATH FOR CHILDREN!
<P>
Current (incomplete) 1990 statistics show that the percentages are still
the same (+- 5%).
<P>
CONCLUSION
<BR>=============
<BR>Firearms are clearly NOT, by any stretch of the imagination, a leading cause
of death for children (ages 18 and under). In facts, firearms are involved
(both homicide and accidents) in ONLY 2.3% of deaths of children.
<HR>
<PRE>
                   DEATHS BY AGE BY MAJOR CAUSES
                                                                 S
      P T              A D                                       U
      O H              C E                                       F
      P O              C A            D           F              F
      U U              I T            R           I         P    O
      L S     A D      D H     M D    O           R         O    C
      A A     L E      E S     O E    W     F B   E    F    I    A     O
      T N     L A      N       T A    N     I U   A    A    S    T     T
 A    I D       T      T       O T    I     R R   R    L    O    I     H
 G    O S       H      A       R H    N     E N   M    L    N    O     E
 E    N         S      L         S    G     S S   S    S    S    N     R
===  =====   ======   ====    ====  =====  ====  ===  ===  ===  ====  ====
&lt1   3,736    4,030    890     179     90   111    2   45   14   171   278
 1   3,496    2,837    863     263    204   153    5   39   25   38    136
 2   3,561    1,941    792     265    177   177   12   20   12   19    110
 3   3,608    1,389    653     248    124   167   10   13    3    8     80
 4   3,604    1,172    548     240     95   116   14    8    1    6     68
 5   3,548      996    463     242     71    73    9    2    3    6     57
 6   3,428      938    454     242     54    74    9    8    2    9     56
 7   3,387      775    369     202     44    60   10    6    0    2     45
 8   3,256      736    342     185     47    51   12    6    2    4     35
 9   3,204      723    367     192     55    45   18    6    1   11     39
10   3,317      678    313     171     44    26   27    5    0   11     29
11   3,207      728    339     177     44    35   23    7    1   12     40
12   3,277      856    402     211     57    31   37    5    2   12     47
13   3,487    1,076    522     278     72    27   38   14    4   14     75
14   3,813    1,427    681     419     82    31   52   12    8   12     65
15   3,768    1,850    929     827     99    24   57   11   10   15     86
16   3,681    2,531  1,391   1,043    125    28   52   21   19    8     95
17   3,603    2,924  1,609   1,255    129    20   42   26   18   15    104
--- ------   ------ ------  ------  -----  ----  ---  ---  ---  ---  -----
TOT 62,981   27,607 11,927   6,639  1,613  1,249 429  254  125  373  1,445

18   3,628    3,718  2,095   1,649    150    25   53   38   19   14    147
l9   3,872    4,045  2,178   1,708    123    37   37   36   33   14    190
20   4,052    4,144  2,168   1,646    t49    37   60   46   38   11    181
21   4,134    4,613  2,367   1,77S    137    53   51   56   54   21    220
22   4,169    4,601  2,168   1,584    142    50   52   45   75   17    203
23   4,250    4,698  2,144   1,537    156    51   32   48   66   13    241
--- ------   ------ ------  ------  -----  ----  ---  ---  ---  ---  -----
TOT 87,744   54,207 26,269  17,612  2,516  1446  755  543  491  309  2,597

Source for above: NSC88
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
                      MURDER BY AGE GROUP BY WEAPON
Uniform Crimes
         --------------------- MURDER  WEAPON ------------------------
                                                                 S
                                              E        N     S   U
                   F       S                  X        A     T   F
                   I   C   T     O            P        R     R   F
                   R   U   A     B        P   L        C     A   O
           T       E   T   B   B J   H    O   O        O     N   C   E
           O       A   T   B   L E   A F  I   S   F    T     G   A   T
A          T       R   I A I   U C   N E  S   I   I    I     L   T   H
G          A       M   N N N   N T   D E  O   V   R    C     E   E   E
E          L       S   G D G   T S   S T  N   E   E    S     D   D   R
=====   ======  =====  =====  ====  ==== ==  ==  ===  ==    ==  ==  ===
&lt1        190       4     16    9     91  0   0    7   1     1  21   40
1-4       325      47     26    20   147  0   0   16   5     0  17   47
5-9       150      45     24    12    33  0   0    9   0     8   6   13
10-14     215     112     43    18    13  0   0    6   1     9   3   10
15-19   1,347     888    283    35    43  0   0   17   2     18  6   55
20-24   2,734   1,714    654   107   103  0   1   18   2     47  6   82
25-29   2,973   1,987    617   102   111  0   0   22   6     44  8   76
30-34   2,397   1,529    530   104   106  0   2   18   4     45  4   55
35-39   1,796   1,130    397    92    77  2   1   19   3     24  4   47
40-44   1,291     810    243    73    75  1   2   15   3     22  3   44
45-49     890     527    187    64    63  0   1   13   0     10  4   21
5O-54     686     364    158    62    55  1   1   13   1     11  0   20
55-59     613     340    134    62    32  1   0    6   1     11  2   24
60-64     507     242    109    56    46  1   3   13   0     10  5   22
60-69     363     159     69    45    37  0   0   14   0     15  9   15
70-74     260     98      54    36    27  0   0    8   2     12  4   19
&gt74       425     111     90    61    86  1   0   19   0     17 11   29
unknown   383     189     60    14    35  0   0   10   0      7  2   66
-----   ------  -----  -----  ----  ---- --  --  ---  --    --  --  ---
&lt18     1,452     580    226   76    303  0   0   47   8   25   47  140
&gt=18   15,710   9,527  3,408  882    842  7   1  186  23  279   66  479
Total  17,545  10,296  3,694  972  1,180  7  11  243  31  311  115  685

Source: UCR85
</PRE>
<HR>
<CENTER>IN THE HEAT OF THE MOMENT</CENTER>
<CENTER>By James D. Wright</CENTER>
<P>
   Bob and Jim are good drinking buddies.  After a night at their favorite
bar, they head back to Jim's trailer for some whiskey.  Jim begins praising
his new girlfriend.  Bob questions her fidelity and claims that he has
slept with her.  Seized by uncontrollable rage, Jim grabs a loaded .44 from
the kitchen drawer and ends the conversation with a bang.
<P>
   This is the sort of scenario that most people probably imagine when they
hear that the majority of murders involve individuals who knew each other
before the crime.  Based on this impression, gun-control advocates argue
that most homicides do not involve murderous intent.  Rather, they are
committed in the heat of the moment, in disputes or altercations among
loved ones or close associates that escalate into rage -- disputes that
turn fatal not so much because anyone intended to kill but because, in that
lamentable fit of anger, a gun was at hand.  And if that is really how most
murders happen, it follows that if fewer guns were "at hand," fewer murders
would be committed.
<P>
  But the data on relationships between homicide victims and their killers
tell a different story.  The conclusion in favor of gun control simply does
not follow from the evidence.
<P>
  FBI figures for 1987 and 1988 reveal that murders by strangers -- for
example, in the course of a robbery -- are rare.  They account for only
about one in eight homicides (12.6 percent).  But this does not imply that
the remaining seven in every eight homicides involve loved ones slaying
one another.  After all, very few people love everyone they meet.  Just
how close is the relationship between victim and killer in the typical
murder?
<P>
  In many cases -- nearly a third of the total -- the authorities simply
cannot determine the relationship.  Next to "unknown," the largest
relationship category is "acquaintance,"  accounting for approximately one
additional third of the murders.  You might think that "acquaintance"
refers to fairly close associates, but the FBI tallies neighbors, friends,
boyfriends, girlfriends, and all types of relatives in their own separate
categories.  It there were any degree of intimacy or closeness between
acquaintances, the FBI would almost certainly classify the homicide under
another heading.  In this context, "acquaintance" means only that the
victim and killer had some idea of each other's identities before the
murder.
<P>
  All categories of relatives combined account for about one in six
murders (15.9 percent o average).  About half of these are slayings of
spouses by spouses.  Friends and neighbors add an average of 9.8 percent
to the homicide total.  Altogether, then, relatives, friends, and
neighbors commit only about a quarter (25.7 percent) of murders.  So it's
not true that "most" murders involve persons who share some degree of
intimacy or closeness.  Most murders -- some three-quarters of them --
are committed by casual acquaintances (30.2 percent), perfect strangers
(12.8 percent), or persons unknown (31.2 percent).
<P>
  Gun control advocates, however, can easily convey the opposite
impression of these data.  By simply omitting the unknown relationships
from the calculation and including casual acquaintances within the
category of intimates, they can make it seem as if every murder other
than those by perfect strangers involve intimates.  But given what the
category of acquaintance specifically omits, this would be an
irresponsible misrepresentation.
<P>
  That most murder victims know their killers prior to the crime is
scarcely a surprise.  That people know one another is not in itself
evidence that they like one another.  Ordinarily, the only people a
murderer would have good reasons to kill would be people he or she knows.
Indeed, slayings in the course of some other felony are the only obvious
exception;  random killings are understandably quite rare.  So contrary
to the common assumption, some degree of prior acquaintance between
victim and offender definitely does not rule out murderous intent.
<P>
  Cases of family members slaying one another figure prominently in the
gun control debate but represent fewer than one-sixth of all murders.
Studies of family homicide have shown that most of these families
(about 85 percent of them) have had previous domestic quarrels serious
enough to bring the police to the residence: in nearly half of the cases,
the police had been called to the residence five or more times before the
killing occurred.  Indeed, most of the families in which such homicides
occur have histories of abuse and violence going back years or even
decades.  These slayings are generally not isolated outbursts of rage
between normally placid and loving couples.  They are, instead, the
culminating episodes in long, violent, abusive family relations.
<P>
  At least some family homicides probably do result from the stereotypical
"moment of rage."  Others result from a thoroughly willful intention to kill.
Knowing only that victim and killer are related by blood or marriage does not
in itself tell us which explanation is correct for a given homicide.
<P>
  Consider the bizarre case of Theron and Leila Morris, a Florida couple
recently accused of killing their son, Christopher.  Police say the
Morrises were plotting with their son to murder his ex-wife for her
insurance money.  Then the conspirators learned that the ex-wife's
insurance policy had lapsed, so there was nothing to be gained in killing
her.  Evidently annoyed by this turn of events, the Morrises then
allegedly plotted between themselves to kill Christopher in order to
collect on HIS insurance policy, which was still in force and worth
twice what his ex-wife's policy was worth.  The Associated Press reported
that the parents were also angry with Morris because he had "sold them
bogus cocaine for $1,000 that they had intended to resell."
<P>
  Morris's killing will appear in the FBI's 1990 Uniform Crime Report
tabulation as a family homicide;  having been slain by his own parents,
he will be included in the category "son."  What, then, will we know
about the circumstances of his death, given that he was the child of his
killers?  Nothing at all.
<P>
  How many murders are committed in a moment of rage, brought to fruition
largely because a gun was available, and how many result from an
unambiguous intention to kill?  The fact is, nobody knows the answer to
this question.  An adequate answer would require getting inside the heads
of murders as they contemplate and commit their crimes.
<P>
  Clearly, though, the assumption that heat-of-the-moment murders far
outnumber willful murders cannot be justified by evidence on prior
victim-offender relationships.  Such information does not support
conclusions about homicidal motives or about the number of slayings that
might be prevented if fewer guns were available.
<HR>
Date: Wed, 5 Sep 90 13:07:49 PDT
<P>
Gun Week reports in its August 31 issue that homicides in Portland
Oregon have fallen as concealed carry permits increased rapidly:
<P>
        In the first seven months of 1990, 2,200 permits
        to carry a concealed weapon have been issued.  Only
        17 such permits were issued in [all of] 1989.
        Homicide has fallen 33% in the first six months
        of 1990 in Portland, measured against the same
        period last year.
<P>
In the same article,  Allan Gottlieb notes that homicides increased 9 percent
over the same period in Baltimore MD, which has a ban on "Saturday Night
Specials."  He also notices that homicides have increased 45 percent this year
in New York City.  There you are three times more likely to be murdered than
die in an automobile accident.  New York has a virtual ban on handgun
possession by law-abiding citizens.
<P>
The decrease in homicides in Portland is the second largest
in the country.  The article does not tell the first largest
decrease or the source of the source of the homicide numbers.
<P>
Oregon recently "liberalized" its CCW system to remove
arbitrary police discretion in the issuance of permits.
Typically the difference in wording is "shall" versus
"may" be issued a permit.  I believe they got this in
exchange for a waiting period on handgun purchases.
<HR>
<CENTER>AN EXAMINATION OF THE LEADING PRINCIPLES OF THE FEDERAL
CONSTITUTION</CENTER>
<CENTER>by N. Webster, (Philadelphia 1787), pages 41 to 43:</CENTER>
<P>
[41]
<BR>But what is tyranny?  Or how can a free people be deprived of their
liberties?  Tyranny is the exercise of some power over a man, which is not
warranted by law, or necessary for the public safety.  A people can never
be deprived
<P>
[42]
<BR>of their liberties, while they retain in their own hands, a power superior
to any other power in the state.  This position leads me directly to enquire,
in what consists the power of a nation or of an order of men?
<P>
In some nations, legislators have derived much of their power from the influence
of religion, or from the implicit belief which an ignorant an superstitious
people entertain of the gods, and their interposition in every transaction of
life.  The Roman Senate sometimes availed themselves of this engine to carry
their decrees and maintain their authority.  This was particularly the case,
under the aristocracy which succeeded the abolition of the monarchy.  The augurs
and priests were taken wholly from pa trician families (*).  They constituted a
distinct order of men--had power to negative any law of the people, by declaring
that it was passed during the taking of the auspices.(^)  This influence derived
from the authority of opinion, was less perceptible, but as tyrannical as a
military force.  The same influence constitutes, as this day, a princical
support of several governments on the eastern continent, and perhaps in the
South America.  But in North America, by a singular concurrence of
circumstances, the possibility of establishing this influence, as a pillar of
government, is totally precluded.
<P>
[43]
<BR>Another source of power in government is a military force.  But this, to be
efficient, must be superior to any force that exists among the people, or which
they can command;  for otherwise this force would be annihilated, on the first
exercise of acts of oppression.  Before a standing army can rule, the people
must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe.  The supreme
power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body
of the people are armed, and constitute a force superiour to any band of regular
troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States.  A military
force, at the command of Congress, can execute no laws, but such as the people
perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will possess the {\it power},
and jealousy will instantly inspire the {\it inclination}, to resist the
execution of a law which appears to them unjust and oppressive.  In spite of all
the nominal powers, vested in Congress by the Constitution, were the system once
adopted in its fulest latitude, still the actually exercise of them would be
frequently interrupted by popular jealousy.  I am bold to say, that {\it ten}
just and constitutuional measures would be resisted, where {\it one} unjust or
oppressive law would be enforced.  The powers vested in Congress are little more
than {\it nominal}; nay {\it real} power cannot be vested in them, nor in any
body, but the {\it people}.  The source of power is in the {\it people} of this
country, and cannot for ages, and probably never will, be removed.
<P>
In what does {\it real} power consist?  The
answer is short and plain--in {\it property}.  Could
<P>
{he then continues on a discussion of the power of the government,
and that is basically the power of controlling property}
<HR>
You might also be interested to know how U.S. law defines the militia:
<P>
These sections are referred to as 10 USC 311.
<P>
<CENTER>TITLE 10--ARMED FORCES</CENTER>
<CENTER>Section 311. Militia: composition and classes</CENTER>
<P>
(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least
17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32, under 45
years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become,
citizens of the United States and of female citizens of the United States who
are commissioned officers of the National Guard.
<BR>(b) The classes of the militia are--
<BR>(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard
        and the Naval Militia; and
<BR>(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia
        who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia.
<HR>
A Summary of studies on gun use and gun control.
<P>
o A study by the Centre for Disease Control conducted in April 1985
  showed that "waiting periods have no effect on suicides."
<P>
o A study reported in the Annals of the American Academy
  of Political Science in May 1981 found that "most felons
  and other ineligibles who obtain guns do so not because
  the state's screening system fails to discern their
  criminal record, but rather because these people find
  ways of circumventing the screening system entirely."
<P>
o A 1985 Justice Department study showed that the primary
  means of gun acquisition by felons is theft.
<P>
o A University of Massachusetts study found that most
  criminals get their guns from other criminals.
<P>
o States with waiting periods do not have lower crime rates.  No waiting
  period has ever been shown to have any effect on crime whatsoever.
<P>
o Since banning handguns in 1976, the homicide rate in the
  District of Columbia has risen 168% to 71.9 -- possibly
  the highest rate ever for a large American city. The gun-related
  homicide rate for the district has risen over
  250%, while falling nationally and regionally.
<P>
o Since the Canadian firearms control act was brought in in 1978,
  the number of assaults with firearms in Toronto has quadrupled.
<P>
o Only 180 homicides in Canada involve firearms, and about
  160 of those involved illegal firearms.
<P>
o In 1976 40% (6 million Canadians) of Canadian households
  contained a firearm. Approximately 190,000 firearms are
  imported into Canada in each year. In July 1989 3% of
  Canadians owned a handgun. In November 1990 the rate was 6%.
<P>
o FBI reports show that 85% of all firearms used in crimes
  are obtained illegally.
<P>
o In the USA, the number of children under 12 killed as a
  result of firearm accidents in the home is approximately
  280 per year. In comparison, over 5,000 children drown
  every year in back yard swimming pools.
<P>
o Record-breaking murder rates in Washington D.C, New York
  City, and Detroit are often given as examples of the need
  for "handgun control," when in fact handguns are so
  already strictly regulated in these cities as to be
  practically banned. In New York, for example, you must
  obtain a permit from the Police Department before you can
  take your handgun out of your home, and even then you may
  do so only twice in one year, even if just for target
  practice at a shooting range. New York City enacted
  strict firearms ownership regulations in 1968, but has
  seen a 126% increase in the homicide rate and an increase
  of 250% in the gun-related crime rate.
<P>
o  There is no evidence whatsoever showing that restriction
  of handgun ownership is related in any way to violent
  crime rates. In the U.S., in fact, there appears to be
  an direct relationship between strictness of gun laws and
  the rate of violent crime. In some communities where extremely
  permissive gun laws grant "permits to carry" practically for the
  asking, violent crime rates have plummeted drastically.
<P>
o In Portland Oregon in 1989 17 CCW (Carry Concealed
  Weapon) permits were issued, in 1990 2500 CCW permits
  were issued, in 1990 the murder rate in Portland DROPPED by 33%.
<P>
o In Orlando, Florida, in 1966 a series of brutal rapes
  swept the community. Citizens reacted to the tripling in
  the rate of rape over the previous year by buying
  handguns for self-defense; 200-300 firearms were being
  purchased each week from dealers, and an unknown number
  more from private parties. The newspaper there, the
  _Orlando Sentinel Star_, had an anti-gun editorial
  stance and tried to pressure the local police chief and
  city government to stop the flow of arms.
<P>
When that tactic failed, the paper decided that in the interest of public
safety, they would sponsor a gun-training seminar in conjunction with the local
police.  Plans were made for a one-day training course at a local city park.
<P>
Plans were made for an expected 400-500 women.  However, more than 2500 women
arrived, and brought with them every conceivable kind of firearm.  They had to
park many blocks away, and the weapons were carried in in purses, paper bags,
boxes, briefcases, holsters, and womens' hands.  One police officer present
said he'd never been so scared in his life.
<P>
Swamped, the organizers hastily dismissed the women with promises for a more
thorough course with scheduled appointments.  The course offered was for three
classes/week, and within 6 months, the Orlando police had trained more than
6000 women in basic pistol marksmanship and the law of self-defense.
<P>
The results?
<P>
   In 1966 there were 36 rapes in Orlando, triple the 1965 rate. In 1967,
there were 4.  Before the training, rape rates had been increasing in Orlando
as nationwide. Five years after the training, rape was still below pre-training
levels in Orlando, but up 308% in the surrounding areas, 96% for
Florida overall, and 64% nationally.
<P>
Also in 1967, violent assault and burglary decreased by
25% in Orlando, in addition to the rape reductions.
<P>
In 1967, NOT A SINGLE WOMAN HAD FIRED HER WEAPON in self-defense.
In 1967, NOT A SINGLE WOMAN HAD TURNED HER GUN
ON HER HUSBAND OR BOYFRIEND. (No data are available for later years.)
<P>
The reason the program worked so spectacularly well is
that it was widely known that Orlando women had the means
and training to defend themselves from attackers.
Rapists, being (somewhat) human, they are learning
engines; they took their business elsewhere--to the
detriment of the defenseless in those other locations
<P>
o In Florida since the gun laws have been modified to
  allow women who qualify to carry a gun concealed, the
  reported rape rate has DROPPED by 90%.
<P>
o Switzerland is a country with an assault weapon and
  ammunition in almost every home, yet there is very little crime.
<P>
o Japan has a total ban on civilian firearm ownership, yet
  in Sept-Oct 1990 in Okinawa prefecture, there were 28
  shootings, resulting in the deaths of several police
  officers as reported in November 1990, Japan Today, CBC Newsworld.
<P>
o A recent study in the US found that an individual was
  much more likely to be a victim of violent crime in an
  area with strict gun control laws, than in an area with lax gun laws.
<P>
o  Last year, about 25,000 murders were committed in the
  United States. About 9,000 of these were committed with
  handguns. This is in a country with 250,000,000 people,
  including 65,000,000 gun owners. Assuming that each of
  the 9,000 was committed by a different person, they
  represent approximately 1/7,000th of the gun owners in that country.
<P>
o US law enforcement statistics show that firearms were
  used by private citizens in self-defence (to deter,
  prevent or stop a crime) approximately 1,000,000 times
  in 1989. This resulted in 1500 to 2800 justifiable
  killings (0.15% to 0.28%) and 8700 to 16600 non-fatal
  legally permissible woundings (0.87 % to 1.66%). The
  remaining 98% involved neither killings nor woundings
  but rather warning shots fired or guns pointed or
  referred to. "Crime Control through the Private Use of
  Armed Force" Professor Gary Kleck, Feb 88, Social Problems.
<P>
o US Department of Justice victim studies show that
  overall, when rape is attempted, the completion rate is
  36%. But when a woman defends herself with a gun, the
  completion rate drops to 3%. Overall victimization
  studies show that for all violent crimes, including
  assault, rape, and robbery, the safest course for the
  victim is to resist with a firearm. The second safest
  course is passive compliance with the attacker, but this
  tactic approximately doubles the probability of death or
  injury for the victim. All other tactics (mace, whistles,
  hand-to-hand combat, screams, and so forth) have even worse outcomes.
<P>
o A Florida State University study indicates that law-abiding
  citizens use handguns approximately 645,000
  times a year in self-protection, with an additional
  350,000 self-defense uses of rifles and shotguns. For
  thousands, the possession and use of a firearm is the
  difference between being the victim of a violent crime
  and successfully thwarting a criminal attack.
<P>
o  The concept of a "cooling off" period has no basis in
  fact. A Kansas City study showed that in 90% of domestic
  violence cases, police had been called to the scene
  several times before. A Police Foundation study showed that only
  2% of all handguns traced to crimes were less than a month old.
<P>
o Marc Lapine was seen at the Montreal university several
  months before his murderous rampage, which suggests he
  planned his attack months in advance.
<P>
o John Hinckley,who shot former US President Reagan and
  James Brady, bought his firearm legally from a Texas gun
  store 5 months beforehand, and also possessed several
  other more powerful firearms. He had been arrested
  several days earlier for attempting to smuggle a firearm
  aboard an airplane. At that time a background check was
  performed and as he had no criminal record, he was able
  to plead guilty, pay a $62.50 fine, and was released.
<P>
o The "teflon-coated armour-piercing bullet" does not
  exist. A company called KTW developed a teflon-tipped
  bullet for penetrating car doors, but when fired into
  standard Kevlar body armour, it was even less effective
  than ordinary bullets, contrary to the claims of
  fanatical anti-gun lobbyists who trumpeted that this
  "new bullet rendered cops helpless, even with body
  armour." No police officer in the USA has been ever shot
  with armour piercing handgun ammunition.
<P>
KTW was setup in the early 1980's by police Sergeant Don Ward, police
Lieutenant Turcus, and scientist Dr. Paul Kopsch.  They sold their KTW round
to the military and a handful of police departments and have never sold it to
the public.
<P>
The NRA helped draft the final legislation which was adopted, which banned the
sale of the KTW ("armor-piercing") bullet to anyone but police and military
organizations.  The ORIGINAL legislation, which the NRA opposed, would have
banned any ammunition which could pierce a ballistic vest.  That includes the
smallest caliber (.22), which can slip between the fibers of the kevlar vest.
It also includes most rifle ammunition, but very little handgun ammunition.
<P>
In short, the legislation as proposed would have banned
most calibers, including ones like .270 Winchester and
.30-30, which have been used since the turn of the century for hunting.
<P>
o "Plastic guns that are invisible to airport X-ray
  machines" do not exist. The only pistol on the market
  today with any plastic parts is the Glock, and it is
  approximately 70% metal (83% by weight) and the high
  strength polymer frame contains barium. A similar pistol
  is made by Ramline, but only in .22 calibre.
<P>
The NRA helped draft a bill which bans guns which can
pass airport security. Mind you, no such guns exist; the
gun which caused all the controversy, the Glock, contains
a large amount of metal, and there is a metal polymer in
the plastic portions which shows up on an X-ray machine.
<P>
 The Glock is very reliable, and has become the standard
sidearm for a large number of law enforcement agencies
across the country, including, if memory serves,
Washington D.C. and parts of New York.
<P>
One of the main proponents of the original legislation, Senator Metzenbaum,
revealed his true opinion.  When pressed, he exclaimed: "I don't care about
airport security! I want to get the guns!"
<P>
o After lobbying by hysterical anti-gunners, US government
  legislation has been passed banning possession of
  "teflon-coated armour-piercing bullets" and "plastic
  guns invisible to airport X-ray machines," even though
  neither of these has ever existed.
<P>
o  There are approximately 247,000 legally owned fully
  automatic weapons (Assault rifles, machine guns, sub
  machine guns) in the USA, according to the BATF, in the
  years since 1934, NONE of these weapons has been used by
  their legal owner in a criminal offence.
<P>
o There are approximately 5,000 legally owned fully
  automatic weapons (Assault rifles, machine guns,
  submachine guns) in Canada, yet since 1934 NONE of these
  weapons has been used by their legal owner in a criminal offence.
<P>
o In a paper presented to the Royal Society in 1663, Palmer
  described the theory of operation used by modern machine
  guns, both recoil and gas-operated. In 1718, Puckle was
  granted a patent on an automatic weapon. Multiple-barrel
  weapons, which Palmer's and Puckle's weren't, were
  developed centuries earlier. Some of these earlier guns
  also used a rather clever way of getting multiple shots
  from the same barrel without reloading. Revolvers had
  also been invented by the 1770s and the Brits actually
  used semi-autos against the colonials.
<P>
o Bolt action and lever action rifles are convertible to
  be fully automatic weapons. At the turn of the century
  John Browning's first machine gun was converted from a
  lever action rifle. During World War One, the factory in
  Canada converted the Ross bolt action rifle into the Huot
  machine gun. During World War Two in New Zealand, 2000 Lee Enfield
  bolt action rifles were converted into the Charlton light machine gun.
<P>
o In 1990 the state of Florida, faced with increasing
  pressure to condemn "assault weapons," assembled a
  commission to study the evidence and then issue a report
  to the governor and legislature.
<P>
The panel, comprised of lawmakers, citizens, representatives from both
pro- and anti-gun groups and law enforcement officials, spent several months
examining data supplied by both state and federal law enforcement agencies.
The group also heard testimony from Florida police officers who work within
some of the region's worst criminal battle zones.
<P>
Early this spring the commission announced the results of their labors,
with the findings mirroring similar studies conducted by the U.S. Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF).  In summary, the commission concluded
that based on police reports, actual testimony and statistics provided by
federal agencies, the use of "assault weapons" by criminals constituted only a
fraction of a percent of types of firearms employed in felonious activity.
<P>
The commission discovered that media hype and anti-gun advertising had created
a sinister ambience around these firearms without actually clarifying what the
guns were.  The term "assault weapon" is generally defined as a military weapon
capable of both semiautomatic and fully automatic fire.  Written testimony
supplied to the commission indicated that fully automatic firearms were rarely
if ever used by criminals.  In fact, there was no evidence that a licensed
fully automatic firearm has ever been instrumental in a reported crime.
<P>
The panel found that the term "assault weapon" as portrayed by the media
referred to semiautomatics in general, especially guns resembling
military-style combat firearms.  The resulting confusion made reporting by
police officials difficult at best, the commission determined.  As a result,
they called for a clarified reporting system that would indicate the type, make,
caliber and action of any firearm used in a crime.
<P>
  Even with the confusion, actual data available still indicated that use of
semi-autos by criminals was negligible.  This supported BATF findings
nationwide that semiautomatic firearms were not "20 times more likely to be
used in a crime" and were not the "weapon of choice" of drug dealers.  These
assumptions have been advanced by anti-gun organizations, have formed the basis
of a discriminatory newspaper study, and have often been echoed by media
commentators.
<P>
o The Florida report, in concert with federal studies,
  also found that stolen guns rather than over-the-counter
  purchases were most often employed by criminals. Some
  anti-gun groups insist that Florida gun shops are doing
  a brisk trade supplying "assault weapons" to drug gangs.
  The commission found no evidence to support this accusation.
<P>
  In conclusion, the commission could not uncover any reason to place
restrictions upon the sale of semiautomatic firearms and determined that these
guns posed no particular menace to law enforcement.  Instead they called for
harsh mandatory sentences for the criminal misuse of firearms, an end to
plea-bargaining in firearms-related crimes, better reporting procedures in
naming firearms used in crimes, and an improved database to prohibit
point-of-purchase sales and the issue of carry permits to individuals with a
history of mental incompetency.
<P>
<P>
o New Jersey just enacted the most harsh "assault weapon"
  ban in the country. Owning a BB gun is now felony
  possession of an assault weapon. According to the bill,
  a BB gun is capable of causing injury and often holds
  more than 15 pellets. None of the weapons banned had been
  used in a criminal offence in New Jersey in the previous 5 years.
<P>
But contrary to what the media reported, the police didn't want the favor.
The law enforcement community generally thought that Gov. James J. Florio went
off the deep end by making the assault weapon ban his top priority.
<P>
The New Jersey Chiefs of Police voted against the bill 197-1.  The Fraternal
Order of Police testified against the bill the state Legislature.  The Police
Benevolent Association was persuaded to abstain on the issue, after Florio
threatened to rescind a police benefits package that had recently been agreed
to.
<P>
o In Washington, D.C., there are a number of police
  lobbies that do support "assault weapon" bans (though
  narrower than the New Jersey one). Yet it's not clear
  that the lobbyists have the working police solidly behind them.
<P>
o Last year the National Association of Chiefs of Police
  conducted a poll of command-rank officers: 69 percent
  thought law-abiding citizens ought to have the right to
  purchase any type of firearms; 62 percent opposed a
  federally-mandated waiting period.
<P>
  A similar study of officers on the street found that
  about 88% opposed gun bans and supported public ownership of firearms.
<P>
Yet Handgun Control's claim to have the active support of "every major
police organization" for its gun prohibitions and waiting periods is dishonest.
The National Sheriffs Association, the American Federation of Police and the
National Association of Chiefs of Police have refused to board the Handgun
Control train.
<P>
There is one group of police that generally does back more gun control --
big-city police chiefs and the organizations they run.  Their voice certainly
deserves to be heard, but too often the voices of other officers are silenced.
For example, San Jose, Calif., Police Chief Joseph McNamara raises funds for
Handgun Control on official city stationary and claims to represent the views
of "every law enforcement officer."  But when rank-and-file San Jose officer
Leroy Pile spoke out against gun control on his own time, the chief had him
suspended and tried to fire him.
<P>
o In Maryland, during the 1988 election, pro-gun police
  officers were forbidden to speak out against a gun
  control proposal that was on the ballot. Maryland gun
  control proponents, including Gov. William Donald
  Schaefer, then claimed to be fighting for the law enforcement community.
o  Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl Gates has denounced
  "semi-autos," in which he asserted that their massive use
  by criminals, their excessive power, their use in drive-by
  shootings, and their easy convertibility to "full
  auto." Chief Gates is now facing calls for his
  resignation as a result of the video-taped beating of a
  black man by several white officers.
<P>
o At the same time, the LAPD ballistics expert produced
  evidence that such firearms accounted for about 3 percent
  of crime guns, were difficult if not impossible in most
  cases to convert and were almost never converted, and
  that drive-by shootings rarely involved more than three to five rounds.
<P>
o California recently passed an "assault weapon ban". The
  firearms banned included several non-existent firearms,
  as well as a single shot shotgun. Most of the firearms
  banned were not capable of full-auto fire, and thus were
  not assault weapons. Approximately 300,000 of these
  firearms are in legal hands in California. The state then
  required all current owners of these weapons to register
  them by Dec 31, 1990, but only printed a fraction of the
  registration forms required and so most gun owners were
  not able get the required forms. As a result, only 30,000
  firearms were registered on time and another 20,000 or
  so late in registration. These late registrations were
  then turned over to state Justice Department for legal
  action against those people who tried to obey the law.
<P>
o Leading studies from the U.S. Justice Department
  indicate that criminals fear meeting an armed victim more
  than they fear running from the police. In fact, more
  than a third of the felons surveyed admitted to having
  been "scared off, shot at, wounded, or captured by an
  armed victim." Morever, almost 40% of the felons surveyed
  admitted there was at least one time when they decided
  not to commit a crime for fear that the victim was armed.
<P>
From the Reuters News Service May 1, 1991
<HR>
Headline: Police Officials Say Citizens Should Take Up Arms
<P>
U.S. Police chiefs see the breakdown of the justice system as the main cause
of crime and believe citizens should learn how to handle a weapon, according
to a survey released Wednesday.
<P>
A poll taken for the National Association of Chiefs of Police surveyed heads of
more than 15,400 U.S. law enforcement agencies and found that 87 percent think
citizens "should take training in self-defense with firearms to protect their
homes and property".
<P>
The poll showed that 83.6 percent believe the criminal justice system has
broken down to the point that it's inability to prosecute and imprison
criminals is the major cause of crime, and 95.1 percent said that courts
are "too soft on criminals in general".
<P>
Nearly 90 percent believed their own departments are understaffed and three out
of four said that they cannot provide the same level of service as a decade
ago, the survey said.
<P>
The association is a non-profit organization that
operates the American Police Hall of Fame and Museum in Miami.
<HR>
<CENTER>Positive Externalities of Gun Ownership</CENTER>
<CENTER>by John Kell</CENTER>
<P>
      While a friend and I were talking about gun control, he remarked that it
didn't matter to him if restrictions were placed on gun ownership because he
didn't own a gun.  What he failed to realize was the he benefits from civilian
gun ownership whether he owns guns or not.  He benefits because the ownership
of guns by civilians has positive externalities.
<P>
  Externatilities are unpaid-for effects that accrue to third parties from the
use of property by its owners.  The effect may be beneficial or harmful to the
third parties.  If beneficial, the effects are known as "positive
externalities"; if harmful, they are called "negative externalities."  For
example, someone who walks down a residential street full of well-landscaped
yards might emjoy the sight and smell of flowers in bloom.  Though the
individual homeowners paid for and cared for their particular yards, the walker
also benefits.  The pleasure the walker receives is a positive externality of
the homeowners' yard care.
<P>
  Advocates of gun control are quick to point out that innocent third parties
are sometimes injured or killed by accidental discharge or criminal misuse of
firearms.  Indeed, these are negative externalities of guns in civilian hands.
What advocates of gun control rarely acknowlege, or even understand, are the
positive externalities of civilian gun ownership.  Positive externalities may
be less newsworthy, but they are just as real and far outweigh the negative
externalities of the right to bear arms.
<P>
  While accidents and criminal use of guns are reported as news, making the
negative externalities of gun ownership readily apparent, the millions of
peaceful interactions among people that occur each day are not reported.  These
peaceful events are taken for granted, and little thought is given as to what
conditions brought them about in the first place.  Millions awake each morning
and find that their homes haven't been burglarized.  The vast majority of
stores pass through day and night without being robbed.  Many women walk alone
or live alone without being accosted or raped.  These peaceful happenings are
due to many factors, such as burglar alarms, door locks, and police patrols,
but many are due, in part, to civilian gun ownership.
<P>
  One million times each year homeowners and storekeepers protect their
property and lives using firearms; often this occurs without a shot being
fired.[1]  The mere sight of a gun often is enough to send a robber running.
Impressive as this number is, it doesn't show the full extent to which the crime
rate is lowered due to privately owned guns.  In those cases where a gun owner
thwarts a lawbreaker, it is obvious that having a gun benefited its owner.  But
those cases benefit non-owners as well.  If the lawbreaker is killed, he will
commit no crimes.  If the lawbreaker is wounded, captured, or even escapes, his
inclination to commit a similar crime in the future is probably lessened.  The
peace that arises from the disinclination or inability to commit another crime
is a positive externality of gun ownership.
<P>
          Crime Kept in Check
<P>
  It cannot be known how many times each day potential burglars think, "I'm not
going to break into that house; I might get shot."  Even though it is difficult
to evaluate how much crime is kept in check by civilian gun ownership, there is
evidence that suggests its damping effect is substantial.  In Orlando in
1966-67, the numbers of burglaries and rapes fell substantially after
2,500 women went through a well-publicized training program on the use of
handguns.[2]  In a survey taken of felons, 43 percent stated that the fact that
a victim might be armed had caused themn to avoid particular homes or
people.[3]  There probably is no way to determine how many law-abiding citizens
might turn to crime if it were a less dangerous occupation.
<P>
  A friend of mine, a gentle and honest man, once confided in me that he had
stolen a car when he was a teenager.  He and three friends had been walking
down the street in the small town where he lived, noticed a car with keys in
the ignition, hopped in and drove away.  Their joyride ended when they were
pulled over by the local constable.  My friend said his act of thievery hurt
his mother more than anything else he ever did, and he regretted it often.  He
was guilty of theft and knew it, but he said he wished that the car's owner
hadn't left the keys.  Even though a well-equipped criminal can break into a
locked car in less than a minute, leaving cars unlocked with keys in the
ignition greatly increases the number of thefts.
<P>
  The lesson here is that if it is very convenient to commit a crime, more
people will commit it.  This is not to say that everyone is dishonest; it's
just a basic law of human nature that people will choose the easy way over the
hard way when confronted with a task.  In the task of living, it is easier to
take than to make.  As Frederic Bastiat said, "...the very nature of man ...
impels him to satisfy his desires with the least possible pain."[4]  Copyright
laws are violated daily by otherwise honest people with access to photocopiers
and tape recorders.  The crime is so convenient and the victim is so distant,
most people who commit copyright violations probably wouldn't consider
themselves criminals.
<P>
  Bastiat said, "When, then, does the plunder stop?  It stops when it becomes
more painful and more dangerous than labor."[5]  Gun ownership by civilians
makes burglary and robbery very dangerous and often very painful.  About
one-half of all homes in the United States contain firearms.[6]  Someone
considering carrying out a burglary has no way of determining if the house he
plans to enter has guns in it, so he avoids all occupied houses, benefiting
those who don't own guns as well.  People who don't own guns know implicitly
that they benefit from private gun ownership.  How many of them would put a
sign in their yard that says: "The owners of this house will not defend it
with armed force."
<P>
  Jails are full of repeat offenders.  That is evidence that punishment is not
a strong enough deterrent for some people.  The punishment served up by the
criminal justice system usually occurs long after the crime, further
attenuating any deterrence value it may have.  But negative reinforcement, the
condition provided by an armed homeowner at the time of an attempted crime, is
an effective deterrent.  Such immediate and life-threatening action makes crime
a hazardous occupation, and if crime is made a dangerous way of life, the
number of criminals will decline and society will be a safer place for all.
<P>
        Restraining Government
<P>
  Another positive externality, even less apparent, is the restraint that has
been put on government action because of civilian gun ownership.  What policies
might have been put in place by federal, state, and local governments had
civilian gun ownership been heavily restricted?  In the many years since the
founding of our nation, what rules might bureaucrats have written if they
hadn't needed to worry about an armed revolt of the masses?  What invasive
policies might they have come up with to make enforcement of their laws easier?
<P>
  There are thousands of laws in the United States that restrict gun ownership
in one way or another.  Restrictions include waiting periods, bans on concealed
weapons, and bans on owning particular kinds of weapons such as handguns or
military-style semi-automatics.  Gun control advocates support these laws
because they hope to eradicate negative externalities, but reducing gun
ownership eliminates positive externalities as well.  In fact, gun control laws
probably cancel more positive than negative externalities, because law-abiding
citizens are much more likely to obey the rules than are criminals.
<P>
  The negative externalities of guns need to be decreased, but the best way to
minimize them is to deal with them directly.  Accidents can be reduced by
educating owners about proper care and handling of firearms.  Such training is
being provided by nonprofit groups including the National Rifle Association,
and at for-profit shooting ranges.
<P>
  Criminal misuse of firearms can best be decreased by cutting the overall
crime rate.  Methods of reducing crime have been discussed by other authors,
and include drug legalization, eliminating barriers to entry in the work force,
and increasing educational opportunities.
<P>
  Since we don't pay for positive externalities, we seldom think of their
value.  Indeed it would be a formidable task to measure the total value of the
positive externalities of guns in private hands.  However, even without that
measurement, the knowledge of the existence of positive externalities should
help us to understand why so many people consider the right to own firearms to
be a priceless freedom.
<P>
  1. Gary Kleck, "Crime Control Through the Private Use of Armed Force,
     " _Social Problems_, February 1988, p. 4.
  2. Ibid., p. 13.  Rapes had decreased by 89 percent one year after the
     program.  Burglaries dropped "substantially" as well.
  3. Ibid., p. 12
  4. Frederic Bastiat, _The Law_ (Irvington-on-Hudson, N.Y.:
     Foundation for Economic Education, 1950), p. 10.
  5. Ibid., p. 10
  6. Kleck, p. 1
<P>
Mr. Kell is a botanist studying for his Ph.D. in biology at
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, Virginia.
<P>
 Typed from The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty, October 1991 (Vol. 41, No. 10),
pages 374-376, by David Chesler.  All typos are mine.
 There is a photo on the last page showing an older man apparently
instructing or coaching a younger man in the use of what appears to
be a target pistol, at what appears to be a camp or outdoor range.
Both are wearing ear protectors and glasses.  The caption reads
"Nonprofit groups such as the National Rifle Association provide
training in the handling of firearms."  The acknowledgement is
"Courtesy of the National Rifle Association."
<P>
  The Freeman is the monthly publication of The Foundation for Economic
Education, Inc., Irvington-on-Hudson, NY 10533.
<P>
  Copyright (c) 1991 by The Foundation for Economic Education, Inc.  Printed
in the U.S.A.  Permission is granted to reprint any article in this issue
except [two which are not the one above,] provided appropriate credit is given
and two copies of the reprinted materials are sent to The Foundation.
<HR>
<CENTER>HOW TO MAKE THEIR DAY</CENTER>
<P>
Here are a few things we all know about handguns: they are useless for
self-defense; their owners are more likely to kill relatives than assailants;
they tempt the law-abiding to violence. False, false, and false.
<P>
<CENTER>DON B. KATES JR. & PATRICIA TERRELL HARRIS</CENTER>
<P>
    ADVOCATES of gun control generally represent the debate as one between
cool, rational defenders of civil order and ignorant rednecks inspired by
half-acknowledged prejudices.  In fact social-science research is increasingly
on the side of the "rednecks."  And the arguments for banning guns are
mostly myths.*
<P>
     Myth #1: Most murderers are ordinary, law-abiding citizens, who
kill a relative or acquaintance in a moment of anger only because a gun is
available.  In fact, every study of homicide shows the overwhelming majority of
murderers are career criminals, people with lifelong histories of violence,
sometimes irrational, sometimes acquisitive.  The typical murderer has a prior
criminal history averaging at least six years, with four major felony arrests.
He also is likely to be a substance abuser with a record of traffic and/or gun
accidents.  Indeed, even people who accidentally kill with guns tend to have
similar felony records and histories of substance abuse and auto accidents.  In
short, these are aberrant people characterized by a consistent indifference to
human life (including their own).
<P>
    Our present laws acknowledge this by banning gun ownership by ex-felons,
juveniles, and the mentally impaired.  These restrictions fail not because they
are too narrow, but because they are inadequately enforced.
<P>
     Myth #2: The public supports "gun control."  Fifty per cent of American
householders have guns, and 78 per cent of all Americans say in national
surveys that they would use a gun for self-defense.  Americans do support
prudent controls on access to guns (e.g., by ex-felons), but groups advocating
"gun control" want much broader prohibitions.  For example, Handgun Control
Inc. (HCI), which claims to support only moderate controls, considers moderate
the gun-control laws in Washington, D.C.  That city has effectively outlawed
self-defense with guns.  It prohibits handgun sales, and allows hunters to have
rifles and shotguns only if kept unloaded and disassembled.
<P>
     While Americans support gun registration in opinion polls, abstract
endorsement becomes fanatical opposition when HCI and even more extreme
supporters of registration avow (or are forced to admit) that it is only a
first step toward their goal of confiscation.  HCI-backed proposals to ban
handgun sales and confiscate all handguns were rejected even in two of the
most liberal states, California in 1982 and Massachusetts in 1976.
<P>
     Myth #3: Gun owners are ignorant rednecks given to senseless violence.
Studies consistently show that, on the average, gun owners are better educated
and have more prestigious jobs than non-owners.  To judge by their applications
for permits to carry guns at all times, the following are (or were) gun owners:
Eleanor Roosevelt, Joan Rivers, Dianne Feinstein, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger,
Sid Caesar, John Lindsay, Robert Goulet, Leland DuPont, Arthur Godfrey,
Michael Korda, Henry Cabot Lodge, Sammy Davis Jr., Lyman Bloomingdale,
Donald Trump, John Foster Dulles, and John, Laurance, David, Winthrop,
and Nelson Rockefeller.
<P>
     An early academic analysis (still relied upon by gun-control advocates)
that labeled gun owners "Violence prone" turns out to have been based on survey
questions that addressed only willingness to come to the aid of crime victims.
In other words, the analyst confused good citizenship with violence.  Later
surveys show that gun owners are less likely than non-owners to approve of
police brutality, violence against dissenters, etc.
<P>
     Myth #4: Protection against crime is the job of the police.
Slogans like "To protect and serve" contribute to the false impression that the
main function of the police is to protect individuals.  But the U.S. has only
five hundred thousand police officers; dividing that number by three shifts per
day, and adjusting for vacation leave, desk duty, etc., leaves only about
75,000 police on patrol at any one time to protect 250 million Americans.
Their numbers are wholly inadequate to provide individual protection to
everyone.
<P>
     Myth #5: The Second Amendment protects only the states' right to
arm a militia.  This interpretation appeared only in the twentieth century.
Significantly, the two earliest commentaries on the Second Amendment, which
were before Congress when it passed the Bill of Rights, described it as
guaranteeing to the people "their right to keep and bear their private
arms" (Tinch Coxe) and "their own arms" (Sam Adams) (emphasis added).
<P>
     The Founders were well aware of Aristotle's dictum that free governments
rest on free men armed, while basic to tyranny is "mistrust of the people; hence
they deprive them of arms."  To James Madison, author of the Second Amendment,
"The advantage that the Americans have over every other nation is that they
are armed."
<P>
     The Founders put today's NRA mossbacks to shame.  "One loves to possess
arms," Thomas Jefferson wrote to George Washington on June 19, 1796.  On
another occasion, Jefferson wrote his 15-year-old nephew: "Games played with
the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no
character on the mind. [But the gun] gives boldness, enterprise, and
independence to the mind.  Let your gun therefore be the companion of
your walks."
<P>
     Myth #6: Guns are not useful for self-defense.  Advocates of gun
control have been so certain of this that they have paid for several national
surveys to prove it.  Awkwardly, every study has shown the opposite: handguns
are used more often in repelling crimes than in committing them.  While
handguns are used in about 581,000 crimes yearly, they are used to repel about
645,000 crimes.
<P>
     A related argument is that handguns kill six (or even 42) times as
many household members as burglars.  This comparison is deceptive on several
grounds.  First, about half of shootings by one spouse or the other are
defensive-killings of homicidal husbands by victimized wives.  So it
misleadingly characterizes many cases in which guns save innocent lives as
gun murders.
<P>
     Also, by focusing on homes the statistic excludes the numerous instances
in which shopkeepers kill robbers.  When the number of shopkeepers and abused
wives who shoot criminals is counted, the figure for defensive killings
increases by about 1,000 per cent.
<P>
     HCI harps on fatal accidents and murders in the home without mentioning
that the former are generally perpetrated by irresponsible aberrants and the
latter overwhelmingly so.  Disarming the more than 98 per cent of gun owners
who are law-abiding and responsible will not disarm the 2 per cent of
aberrants.  Even if it did, lack of handguns would not prevent the killing of
wives and children with other weapons (like the knife or the far deadlier
shotgun).
<P>
     Perhaps the most disingenuous ploy is to downplay suicides, which
constitute the majority of household handgun deaths in the comparison.  Even if
we agree that stopping suicide is a legitimate use of state power, it is silly
to argue that banning a single method would have a significant effect.  The
most obvious alternative, the long gun, is used in roughly 50 per cent
of current gun suicides.
<P>
     Myth #7: Resistance with a gun will get you injured or killed.
According to gun-controllers, armed women frequently have their guns taken away
and used against them. And so HCI advises submission: "The best way to keep you
alive [is to] put up no defense-give them what they want or run."  National
victim data suggest otherwise.  While victims resisting with knives, clubs, or
bare hands are about twice as likely to be injured as those who submit
(though far less likely to be raped or robbed), victims who resist with a gun
are only half as likely to be injured as those who take HCI's advice. (We
emphasize that a gun does not make resistance safe regardless of circumstances.
Perhaps a person with the foresight to own a gun is more likely to have
pondered in advance the question of when and how to resist.)
<P>
     Myth #8: Other countries have reduced violence by banning guns.
This claim cannot be true, since low European violence long preceded gun
restriction.
<P>
     Restrictive gun laws were largely pioneered, not in Europe, but in various
high-violence American states, beginning in the late 1800s.  The measures
failed -- violence rates continued to rise -- and they were largely repealed
after World War 1.  European gun bans began at about the same time ours were
being repealed.  Moreover, they were a response not to ordinary crime
(which was low), but to the political crime and unrest of the era.
Even as gun control failed to curb ordinary violence in this country, so the
European countries that banned guns in response to political crime have
nevertheless suffered far more such crime than has America.  Ironically, the
only "gun control" in place when English crime fell from its appalling
late-eighteenth-century high to its idyllic early-twentieth century low was
that the police could not carry guns.  The inevitable conclusion is that the
determinants of violence are socioeconomic and cultural factors
rather than the availability of any particular deadly instrument.
<P>
     Moreover, the emphasis on changing gun laws is fundamentally diversionary.
 With prosecutors, judges, and prisons swamped by murderers, rapists, robbers,
etc., the violence-prone know they risk very little real penalty for illegal
possession of a gun.  In the premier criminological study of gun-control
enforcement, Bendis and Balkin conclude: "It is very possible that if gun laws
do potentially reduce gun-related crime, the present laws are all that is
needed if they are enforced.  What good would stronger laws do when the courts
have demonstrated that they will not enforce them?".
<P>
<P>
     *    Those interested in further exploring these issues should
refer to the just-published definitive work, "Point Blank: Guns and Violence
in America" (1991) by Gary Kleck.  See also, Kates, "The Value of Civilian Arms
Possession as a Deterrent to Crime or Defense against Crime," in
American Journal of Criminal Law, Vol. 18, #3 (1991).
<P>
          Mr. Kates, a criminologist and constitutional lawyer, is the editor
          of Firearms and Violence: Issues of Public Policy and author of
          "Guns, Murders, and the Constitution," both available from the
          Pacific Research Institute.  Miss Harris, a medical editor living in
          northern New Jersey, is a past contributor to Handgun Control Inc.
<HR>
<CENTER>NATIONAL REVIEW, OCTOBER 21, 1991, Pages 30 to 32</CENTER>
<P>
  Florida
<P>
  Florida's first  right to  keep and bear arms case appears
  to be  .i.Carlton v.  State (1912);.   The  principal  crime
  involved was  first degree  murder of a peace officer in St.
  Johns County,  by three  brothers named Carlton.90  Relative
  to the  murder conviction the three brothers were appealing,
  the weapons  violations would  seem like a small matter, and
  perhaps for  this reason,  the  Florida  Supreme  Court  put
  relatively little  effort into the discussion of this issue.
  The statute  in question,  General  Statutes  section  3262,
  originally adopted  in 1901  and revised in 1906, appears to
  have been  a general  prohibition on carry of handguns, with
  exceptions for peace officers.91
    What prompted  this statute?   We have the good fortune to
  have a  completely honest statement of its original purpose,
  which was  at considerable  variance from  the text  itself.
  The Florida  Supreme Court  in 1941  refused to  find that a
  pistol in  an automobile  glove compartment  was  "carrying"
  within the  meaning of the statute.  A concurring opinion by
  Justice Buford asserted:
<P>
    I know  something of  the history  of this legislation.
    The original  Act of  1893 was  passed when there was a
    great influx of negro laborers in this State drawn here
    for the purpose of working in the turpentine and lumber
    camps.   The same  condition existed  when the  Act was
    amended in  1901 and the Act was passed for the purpose
    of disarming  the negro  laborers and to thereby reduce
    the  unlawful   homicides  that   were   prevalent   in
    turpentine and  saw-mill camps  and to  give the  white
    citizens in  sparsely settled areas a better feeling of
    security.  The statute was never intended to be applied
    to the  white population and in practice has never been
    so applied.92
<P>
  No more  damning statement can be imagined as to the purpose
  of the  Florida law.   It also fits well with our hypothesis
  about   the    nominally    color-blind    laws    of    the
  .i.Reconstruction; period.
  ____________________
    90 Carlton v. State, 63 Fla. 1, 58 So. 486 (1912).
    91 Carlton v. State, 63 Fla. 1, 58 So. 486, 488 (1912).
    92 Watson v. Stone, 4 So.2d 700, 703 (Fla. 1941), quoted
  in Cottrol and Diamond, 355.
<HR>
  "...a huge proportion of law enforcement personnel who are injured
   with firearms are shot with their own weapons -- 22 out of 43, or
   more than 50 percent, last year in New York City, according to police
   records."
<BR>-- New York Times, "Chop! Kick! Police Seek Martial Art as Defense",
      March 6, 1992, p. A14.
<HR>
How common is firearms ownership? [1]
<P>
Large cities:                      31%
Rural areas and small towns:       72%
<P>
What are their robbery and murder rates? [2]
<P>
Population group           Robbery        Murder
Cities,  over  250,000      850.2          25.6
Cities,  10,000-24,999       86.3           4.1
Cities,  under  10,000       49.4           3.7
Rural counties               15.8           5.7
<P>
It would help the gun-control movement considerably if Cook's observed
association between gun ownership rates and gun crime rates extended to
overall violent crime rates.  But it doesn't.
<P>
[1] 'Guns in America:  Who Owns Them' from a New York Time / CBS NEWS
    Poll, run as a sidebar to 'The Gun Culture...'  New York Times,
    March 9, 1992.  "Do you or any other member of your household own a
    handgun, rifle, shotgun or any other kind of firearm?"  Based on a
    survey of 1281 adults nationwide conducted by telephone Jan. 22-25.
<P>
[2] 1990 annual rates per 100,000 population, as listed in the FBI UCR.
<HR>
These are the various requests for a Bill of Rights made by the state
conventions responsible for ratifying the U.S. Constitution.  Use them
on your favorite Congresscritters.
<P>
Amendments proposed  by the  New Hampshire  Convention, June 21, 1788:
<P>
  Twelfth
<P>
  Congress shall never disarm any Citizen unless such as are
  or have been in Actual Rebellion.
<P>
[_Documentary_History_of_the_First_Federal_Congress_1789- 1791_,
  Vol.  IV, (Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore: 1986), p. 15]
<P>
Amendments proposed  by the  Virginia Convention,  June  27, 1788:
<P>
  Seventeenth, That the people have a right to keep and bear
  arms; that  a well  regulated Militia composed of the body
  of the  people trained  to arms is the proper, natural and
  safe defence  of a  free State.   That  standing armies in
  time of  peace are  dangerous to  liberty,  and  therefore
  ought to  be avoided,  as far  as  the  circumstances  and
  protection of  the Community  will admit;  and that in all
  cases the military should be under strict subordination to
  and governed by the Civil power.
<P>
[_Documentary_History_of_the_First_Federal_Congress_1789-1791_,
Vol. IV, p. 17]
<P>
<P>
Amendments proposed  by the  New York  Convention, July  26, 1788:
<P>
  That the People have a right to keep and bear Arms; that a
  well regulated  Militia, including  the body of the People
  *capable of bearing arms*, is the proper, natural and safe
  defence of a free State; [emphasis in the original]
<P>
[_Documentary_History_of_the_First_Federal_Congress_1789-1791_,
Vol. IV, p. 20]
<HR>
<CENTER>GUN STATISTICS & MORTAL RISKS, by Preston K. Covey</CENTER>
<P>
Erik Larson's even-handed article on Paxton Quigley ("Armed
Force," 2/4/93, WSJ) cites the world's most notorious 'statistic'
regarding guns in the home:  "A pioneering study of residential gunshot
deaths in King County, Washington, found that a gun in the home was 43
times more likely to be used to kill its owner, spouse, a friend or
child than to kill an intruder."  The "43 times" stat is everywhere
these days; it has grown in media lore like the proverbial urban myth:
it was inflated by one pugilistic talk-show pundit to "93."  Given the
shock value of the finding, the conclusion of the 1986 New England
Journal of Medicine (NEJM) study is remarkably understated:  "The
advisability of keeping firearms in the home for protection must be
questioned."
<P>
        Responsible people should indeed question the risks and
benefits of bringing a firearm into their home.  But what we need to
know is this:  What exactly are the risks and benefits?  The NEJM
testimony is neither the whole truth about the benefits nor nothing but
the truth about the risks.  Further, as with motor vehicles, we want to
know:  What control do we have over the risks and benefits?  And, as
with the risks of cancer or heart disease or auto accidents:  How can
we minimize the risks?  Like raw highway death tolls, the NEJM stat is
not very helpful here.
<P>
        The NEJM finding purports to inform us, but it is framed to
warn us off.  It is widely promulgated in the media as a 'scare stat,'
a misleading half-truth whose very formulation is calculated to
prejudice and terrify.  The frightful statistic screams for itself:
The risks far outweigh the benefits, yes?  What fool would run these
risks?  If your car were 43 times more likely to kill you, a loved one,
a dear friend or an innocent child than to get you to your destination,
should you not take the bus?
<P>
        Uncritical citation puts the good name of statistics in the bad
company of lies and damned lies.  Surely, we can do better where lives
are at stake.  Let's take a closer look at this risky business:
<P>
        The "43 times" stat of the NEJM study is the product of
dividing the number of home intruders/aggressors justifiably killed in
self-defense (the divisor) into the number of family members or
acquaintances killed by a gun in the home (the dividend).  The divisor
of this risk equation is 9: in the study's five-year sample there were
2 intruders and 7 other cases of self-defense.  The dividend is 387:
in the study there were 12 accidental deaths, 42 criminal homicides,
and 333 suicides.  387 divided by 9 yields 43.  There were a total of
743 gun-related deaths in King County between 1978 and 1983, so the
study leaves 347 deaths outside of homes unaccounted.
<P>
        The NEJM's notorious "43 times" statistic is seriously
misleading on six counts:
<P>
        1.  The dividend is misleadingly characterized in the media:
the "or acquaintances" of the study (who include your friendly drug
dealers and neighborhood gang members) is equated to "friends."  The
implication is that the offending guns target and kill only beloved
family members, dear friends, and innocent children.  Deaths may all be
equally tragic, but the character and circumstance of both victims and
killers are relevant to the risk.  These crucial risk factors are
masked by the calculated impression that the death toll is generated by
witless Waltons shooting dear friends and friendly neighbors.  This is
criminological hogwash.
<P>
        2.  The study itself does not distinguish households or
environs populated by people with violent, criminal, or substance-abuse
histories -- where the risk of death is very high -- versus households
inhabited by more civil folk (for example, people who avoid high-risk
activities like drug dealing, gang banging and wife beating) -- where
the risk is very low indeed.  In actuality, negligent adults allow
fatal but avoidable accidents; and homicides are perpetrated mostly by
people with histories of violence or abuse, people who are identifiably
and certifiably at 'high risk' for misadventure.  To ignore these
obvious risk factors in firearm accidents and homicides is as
misleading as ignoring the role of alcohol in vehicular deaths: by
tautology, neither gun deaths nor vehicular deaths would occur without
firearms or vehicles; but the person and circumstance of the gun owner
or driver crucially affect the risk.
<P>
        3.  One misleading implication of the way the NEJM stat is
framed is that the mere presence of a gun in the home is much more
likely to kill than to protect, and this obscures -- indeed, disregards
-- the role of personal responsibility.  The typical quotation of this
study (unlike Larson's) attributes fatal agency to the gun:  "A gun in
the home is 43 times as likely to kill . . . ." (The Center to Prevent
Handgun Violence, a major promulgator of the NEJM statistic, uses this
particular formulation.)  We can dispense with the silly debate about
whether it's people or guns that accomplish the killing:  again, by
tautology, gun deaths would not occur without the guns.  The question
begged is how many deaths would occur anyway, without the guns.  In any
case, people are the death-dealing agents, the guns are their lethal
instruments.  The moral core of the personal risk factors in gun deaths
are personal responsibility and choice.  Due care and responsibility
obviate gun accidents; human choice mediates homicide and suicide (by
gun or otherwise).  The choice to own a gun need not condemn a person
to NEJM's high-risk pool.  The gun does not create this risk by
itself.  People have a lot to say about what risk they run with guns in
their homes.  For example, graduates of Paxton Quigley's personal
protection course do not run the touted "43 times" risk any more than
skilled and sober drivers run the same risks of causing or suffering
vehicular death as do reckless or drunk drivers.  Undiscriminating
actuarials disregard and obscure the role of personal responsibility
and choice, just as they disregard and obscure the role of
socio-economic, criminological and other risk-relevant factors in
firearm-related death.  This is why we resent insurance premiums and
actuarial consigment to risk pools whose norms disregard our
individualities.  Fortunately, nothing can consign us to the NEJM risk
pool but our own lack of choice or responsibility in the matter.
<P>
        4.  Suicide accounts for 84% of the deaths by gun in the home
in the NEJM study.  As against the total deaths by gun in King County,
including those outside the home, in-house suicides are 44% of the
total death toll, which is closer to the roughly 50% proportion found
by other studies.  Suicide is a social problem of a very different
order from homicide or accidents.  The implication of the NEJM study is
that these suicides might not occur without readily available guns.  It
is true that attempted suicide by gun is likely to succeed.  It is not
obviously true that the absence of a gun would prevent any or all of
these suicides.  This is widely assumed or alleged, but the
preponderance of research on guns and suicide actually shows otherwise,
that this is wishful thinking in all but a few truly impulsive cases.
(See:  Bruce L. Danto et al., The Human Side of Homicide, Columbia
University Press, 1982; Charles Rich et al., "Guns and Suicide,"
American Journal of Psychiatry, March 1990.)  If suicides were removed
from the dividend of the NEJM study's risk equation, the "43 times"
stat would deflate to "six."  The inclusion of suicides in the NEJM
risk equation -- like the causes, durability, or interdiction of
suicidal intent itself -- is a profoundly debatable matter.  Quotations
of the NEJM study totally disregard this issue.
<P>
        5.  Citations of the NEJM study also mislead regarding the
estimable rate of justifiable and excusable homicide.  Most measures,
like the NEJM homicide rate, are based on the immediate disposition of
cases.  But many homicides initially ruled criminal are appealed and
later ruled self-defense.  In the literature on battered women,
immediate case dispositions are notorious for under-representing the
rate of justifiable or excusable homicide. Time's January 18, 1993,
cover story on women "Fighting Back" reported one study's finding that
40% of women who appeal have their murder convictions thrown out.
Time's July 17, 1989, cover story on a week of gun deaths reported 51%
of the domestic cases as shootings by abuse victims; but only 3% of the
homicides were reported as self-defense.  In a May 14, 1990, update,
Time reported that 12% of the homicides had eventually been ruled
self-defense. In Time's sample, the originally reported rate of
self-defense was in error by a factor of four.  The possibility of such
error is not acknowledged by promulgators of the NEJM statistic.
<P>
        6.  While both the dividend and the product of the NEJM risk
equation are arguably inflated, the divisor is unconscionably
misleading.  The divisor of this equation counts only aggressors who
are killed, not aggressors who are successfully thwarted without being
killed or even shot at.  The utility of armed self-defense is the other
side of the coin from the harms done with guns in homes.  What kind of
moral idiocy is it to measure this utility only in terms of killings?
Do we measure the utility of our police solely in terms of felons
killed -- as opposed to the many many more who are otherwise foiled,
apprehended, or deterred?  Should we not celebrate (let alone count )
those cases where no human life is lost as successful armed defenses?
The question posed to media that cite the NEJM scare stat is this:  Why
neglect the compendious research on successful armed defense, notably
by criminologist Gary Kleck (Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America,
Aldine de Gruyter, 1992)?
        Kleck's estimations of the rate and risk of defensive firearm
use are based on victimization surveys as well as other studies:  the
rate is high (about one million a year) and the risk is good (gun
defenders fare better than anyone, either those who resort to other
forms of resistance or those who do not resist).  Dividing one million
gun defenses a year by 30,000 annual gun deaths (from self-defense,
homicides, suicides, and accidents) yields 33.  Thus, we can construct
a much more favorable statistic than the NEJM scare stat:
<P>
        A gun is 33 times more likely to be used to defend against
        assault or other crime than to kill anybody.
<P>
        Of course, Kleck's critics belittle the dividend of this
calculation; what is good news for gun defenders is bad news for gun
control.  We should indeed question the basis and method of Kleck's
high estimation of defensive firearm use, as I have questioned the NEJM
statistic.  Clearly, the issue of how to manage mortal risks is not
settled by uncritical citation of statistics.  One thing troubles me
still:  we can hardly escape the unquestioned NEJM scare stat in our
media, but we hardly ever find Kleck's good work mentioned, even
critically.
<HR>
> You might point out that, at the time the amendment was written, "militia"
> as understood to be "all able-bodied white males" per the Militia Act of
> 1794 (or 179-something). You did not have to be part of a regular military
<P>
Militia Act of 1792.  It include all free white males between 18 and 45.
Annals of Congress, 2d Congress, around page 1806.
<P>
> unit. It was just the case that, should the need arise for common defense,
> all the men would take their guns and come running. You might look up the
> Militia Act.
>
> Also, point out the reasoning from the Federalist Papers regarding an
> armed citizenry being necessary to prevent the govt from getting any
> funny ideas about implimenting despotism. I'm sure there were plenty
> of Germans in the 1930's who didn't like what Hitler was doing, but without
> an armed citizenry, there's not much they could do about it.
>
<P>
The following section from my upcoming book may be of some value.
I've got more goodies in it, but I have brought those to work yet:
<P>
<CENTER>FOR THE DEFENSE OF THEMSELVES AND THE STATE:</CENTER>
<CENTER>LEGAL CASE STUDIES OF THE 2nd AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION</CENTER>
<CENTER> by Clayton E. Cramer; Wakefield, NH; Hollowbrook Pub. (1992);
ISBN: 0-89341-723-8</CENTER>
<P>
Who Are The Militia?
<P>
For a  contemporary definition  of militia, we can look to
the Virginia constitution ratification convention:
<P>
  Mr. GEORGE  MASON.   Mr. Chairman,  a worthy member has
  asked who are the militia, if they be not the people of
  this country, and if we are not protected from the fate
  of the  Germans, Prussians, &c., by our representation?
  I ask,  Who are  the militia?   They consist now of the
  whole people,  except a  few public  officers.   But  I
  cannot say  who will  be the militia of the future day.
  If that  paper on  the table  gets no  alteration,  the
  militia of  the future  day  may  not  consist  of  all
  classes, high  and low, and rich and poor; but they may
  be confined  to the  lower and  middle classes  of  the
  people, granting exclusion to the higher classes of the
  people.   If we  should ever  see that  day,  the  most
  ignominious  punishments   and  heavy   fines  may   be
  expected.   Under the  present government, all ranks of
  people are  subject to militia duty.  Under such a full
  and equal  representation as  ours,  there  can  be  no
  ignominious punishment inflicted.[14]
<P>
  Earlier during the Virginia debates, Mason had warned:
<P>
  An instance  within the  memory of  some of  this house
  will show  us how  our militia may be destroyed.  Forty
  years ago, when the resolution of enslaving America was
  formed  by   an  artful   man,  who   was  governor  of
  Pennsylvania, to  disarm the  people; that  it was  the
  best and  most effectual  way to enslave them; but that
  they should  not do it openly, but weaken them, and let
  them sink gradually, by totally disusing and neglecting
  the militia.[15]
<P>
  Francis Corbin,  arguing for  the Constitution,  held that
the concerns about standing armies were overstated:
<P>
  The  honorable   gentleman  then   urges  an  objection
  respecting the  militia, who, he tells us, will be made
  the instrument of tyranny to deprive us of our liberty.
  Your militia, says he, will fight against you.  Who are
  the militia?   Are  we not  militia?   Shall  we  fight
  ourselves?   No, sir;  the idea is absurd.  We are also
  terrified by  the dread  of a standing army.  It cannot
  be denied  that we  ought to have the means of defence,
  and be able to repel an attack.[16]
<P>
  The  following   exchange  at   the   Virginia   ratifying
convention demonstrates  that "militia"  was  recognized  as
constituting the whole people:
<P>
  Mr. CLAY wished to be informed why the Congress were to
  have power to provide for calling forth the militia, to
  put the laws of the Union into execution.
<P>
  Mr. MADISON supposed the reasons of this power to be so
  obvious that  they would  occur to  most gentlemen.  If
  resistance should be made to the execution of the laws,
  he said,  it ought  to be overcome.  This could be done
  only in  two ways -- either by regular forces or by the
  people.   By one or the other it must unquestionably be
  done.   If insurrections  should  arise,  or  invasions
  should take  place, the  people ought unquestionably to
  be employed,  to suppress and repel them, rather than a
  standing army.   The best way to do these things was to
  put the  militia on a good and sure footing, and enable
  the government  to make  use  of  their  services  when
  necessary.
<P>
  Mr. GEORGE  MASON.   Mr. Chairman, unless there be some
  restrictions on the power of calling forth the militia,
  to  execute   the   laws   of   the   Union,   suppress
  insurrections, and  repel invasions, we may very easily
  see that  it will  produce dreadful oppressions.  It is
  extremely unsafe,  without some  alterations.  It would
  be to  use the  militia to  a very  bad purpose, if any
  disturbance happened  in New  Hampshire, to  call  them
  from Georgia.   This  would harass  the people  so much
  that they  would  agree  to  abolish  the  use  of  the
  militia, and establish a standing army.[17]
<P>
  Gov.  Randolph   argued  before   the  Virginia  ratifying
convention:
<P>
  In order  to provide  for our  defence, and exclude the
  dangers of a standing army, the general defence is left
  to those who are the objects of defence.  It is left to
  the  militia,  who  will  suffer  if  they  become  the
  instruments of tyranny.[18]
<P>
  Alexander Contee  Hanson, a  member of  the Maryland State
Convention, also discussed the meaning of "militia".  In his
pamphlet in  support of ratification of the Constitution, he
argued  that   the  concerns   about  standing  armies  were
excessive, and  that such  standing armies were unavoidable.
He concludes  that the  concerns are  "a  mere  pretext  for
terrifying you", and that:
<P>
  It may well be material here to remark, that although a
  well regulated  militia has ever been considered as the
  true defense  of a  free  republic,  there  are  always
  honest purposes,  which are  not to  be answered  by  a
  militia.   If they  were, the  burthen of  the  militia
  would be  so great,  that a  free people  would, by  no
  means, be  willing to  sustain it.   If  indeed  it  be
  possible in  the nature of things, that congress shall,
  at  any   future  period,   alarm  us  by  an  improper
  augmentation of  troops, could  we not,  in that  case,
  depend on the militia, which is ourselves.[19]
<P>
  A committee  of the Maryland ratifying convention proposed
ratification of  the Constitution with a list of amendments,
one of  which is  relevant to the Second Amendment.[20]  Among
these provisions:
<P>
  13. That  the militia  shall not  be subject to martial
  law, except in time of war, invasion, or rebellion.[21]
<P>
  In  explaining   why  this  amendment  was  considered  so
important, the official journal of the convention argued:
<P>
  This provision  to restrain the powers of Congress over
  the militia,  although by  no means  so ample  as  that
  provided  by   Magna  Charta,   and  the   other  great
  fundamental and  constitutional laws  of Great Britain,
  (it being  contrary to Magna Charta to punish a freeman
  by martial law, in time of peace, and murder to execute
  him,) yet  it may  prove an  inestimable check; for all
  other provisions in favor of the rights of men would be
  vain and  nugatory, if the power of subjecting all men,
  able to  bear arms, to martial law at any moment should
  remain vested in Congress.[22]
<P>
  The ratifying convention refused the full list of proposed
amendments.    In  response,  the  committee  requested  the
convention  to   ratify  the   Constitution  with   what  it
considered  the   most  important  three  amendments.    The
committee explained further its concern:
<P>
  The first  of these objections, concerning the militia,
  they considered  as essential; for, to march beyond the
  limits of  a neighboring  state  the  general  militia,
  which consists  of so many poor people that can illy be
  spared from  their families  and domestic  concerns, by
  power of  Congress, (who  could know  nothing of  their
  circumstances,)   without    consent   of   their   own
  legislature or executive, ought to be restrained.[23]
<P>
  The militia,  then, was  the same  as the adult freemen of
Maryland.
<P>
  Tench Coxe  of Pennsylvania  was a member of the Annapolis
Convention and Continental Congress.  His letters were among
the  first  to  appear  in  favor  of  ratification  of  the
Constitution, and were widely reprinted in newspapers of the
day.[24]  Coxe admitted:
<P>
  The apprehensions  of the  people  have  been  excited,
  perhaps by  persons with  good  intentions,  about  the
  powers of the new government to raise an army.[25]
<P>
  After stating  that the  Constitution  contained  adequate
restrictions on  the funding and control of standing armies,
Coxe argued that:
<P>
  The militia,  who are in fact the effective part of the
  people  at   large,  will   render  many  troops  quite
  unnecessary.   They will form a powerful check upon the
  regular troops,  and will  generally be  sufficient  to
  over-awe them -- for our detached situation will seldom
  give occasion  to raise an army, though a few scattered
  companies may often be necessary.[26]
<P>
  Richard Henry  Lee was  appointed  to  the  Constitutional
Convention, but  declined to  serve.   His pamphlet  against
ratification of  the Constitution  were  "one  of  the  most
popular" of  the time.[27]  His concerns about standing armies
and the  national government's  authority to  regulate state
militias  provide  both  insights  into  the  importance  of
private arms in restraining national power, and the identity
of the people as the militia.  In discussing the danger that
Congress might  not represent  the interests  of the  common
people in  the levying  of taxes  and  raising  of  standing
armies, Lee admits:
<P>
  It is  true, the  yeomanry of  the country  possess the
  lands, the  weight of  property, possess  arms, and are
  too strong a body  of men to be openly offended -- and,
  therefore,  it   is  urged,  they  will  take  care  of
  themselves, that men who shall govern will not dare pay
  any disrespect to their opinions.28
<P>
  But recognizing  that slow change is frequently capable of
lulling the population to sleep in a way that radical change
will not:
<P>
  It is  easily perceived, that if they have their proper
  negative upon  passing laws  in  congress,  or  on  the
  passage of  laws relative to taxes and armies, they may
  in twenty  or thirty years be by means imperceptible to
  them, totally  deprived  of  that  boasted  weight  and
  strength: This  may be  done  in  a  great  measure  by
  congress, if  disposed  to  do  it,  by  modelling  the
  militia.   Should one  fifth or  one eighth part of the
  men capable  of bearing arms, be made a select militia,
  as has  been proposed,  and those  the young and ardent
  part of  the community,  possessed of  but little or no
  property, and  all the others put upon a plan that will
  render them  of no  importance, the  former will answer
  all the  purposes of  an army, while the latter will be
  defenceless.[29]
<P>
<P>
  Further evidence  of the  identity of  the militia as "the
people", and not just a small part of the population, can be
found in  James Madison's  Federalist 46.  Madison sought to
alleviate concerns  about Federal  power.   To that  end, he
pointed out that:
<P>
  The  only  refuge  left  for  those  who  prophecy  the
  downfall of  the State  Governments, is  the  visionary
  supposition that  the Federal Government may previously
  accumulate  a   military  force  for  the  projects  of
  ambition...[30]
<P>
  Madison asserts  the political  unlikeliness  of  such  an
event, but:
<P>
  Extravagant as  the supposition  is, let  it however be
  made.  Let a regular army, fully equal to the resources
  of the country be formed; and let it be entirely at the
  devotion of the Federal Government; still it would not
  be going  too far  to say,  that the  State Governments
  with the  people on  their side  would be able to repel
  the danger.   The highest number to which, according to
  the best computation, a standing army can be carried in
  any country,  does not exceed one hundredth part of the
  whole number  of souls; or one twenty-fifth part of the
  number able  to bear  arms.   This proportion would not
  yield in the United States an army of more than twenty-five
  or thirty thousand men.  To these would be opposed
  a militia  amounting to near half a million of citizens
  with arms  in their hands, officered by men chosen from
  among themselves,  fighting for their common liberties,
  and united  and  conducted  by  governments  possessing
  their affections  and  confidence.    It  may  well  be
  doubted whether a militia thus circumstanced could ever
  be conquered by such a proportion of regular troops.[31]
<P>
This is a clear statement that the "militia" was not a small
professional military, but the entire male population of the
country, "with arms in their hands".
  There is  other contemporaneous evidence that the Founding
Fathers considered  the militia to be equivalent to, if not,
"the people", at least a very large part of the people.  The
Militia Act of 1792 declared the:
<P>
  "militia of  the United States" to include almost every
  free adult  male in  the United  States.  These persons
  were obligated  to possess  a  firearm  and  a  minimum
  supply of  ammunition and  military  equipment.    This
  statute, incidentally remained in effect into the early
  years of  the present century as a legal requirement of
  gun ownership  for most of the population of the United
  States.[32]
<P>
  The same  Congress that  debated the  Bill of Rights, also
debated HR-102, the Militia Bill which became, in the Second
Congress, the  Militia Act  of 1792.   Its  language clearly
shows:
<P>
  That the  militia of the United States shall consist of
  each and  every free,  able-bodied male  citizen of the
  respective States,  resident therein,  who are or shall
  be of  the age  of eighteen years, and under the age of
  forty-five years  (except as  is hereinafter  excepted)
  who shall severally and respectively be enrolled by the
  captain or  commanding officer  of the  company  within
  whose bounds  such citizens  shall reside...   That every
  citizen so  enrolled and  notified shall  within  _____
  month_ thereafter,  provide himself  with a good musket
  or firelock  of a bore not smaller than seventeen balls
  to the  pound, a  sufficient bayonet  and belt, a pouch
  with a box therein to contain not less than twenty-four
  cartridges  suited   to  the  bore  of  his  musket  or
  firelock, each  cartridge to  contain a proper quantity
  of powder  and ball,  two spare flints, and a knapsack,
  and shall appear so armed, accoutred and provided, when
  called out  to exercise  or into  service as  is herein
  after directed...[33]  [Look this up in Annals of Congress]
<P>
  Debate on the Militia Bill, on December 22, 1790, involved
discussion  of  whether  the  Congress  should  define  what
persons would  be exempted  from militia  duty, or the state
legislatures should  do so.   As  part of  that debate, Rep.
Williamson observed:
<P>
  When we  departed from the straight line of duty marked
  out for  us by  the  first  principles  of  the  social
  compact, we  found ourselves  involved  in  difficulty.
  The burden  of the  militia duty  lies equally upon all
  persons; and  when we contemplate a departure from this
  principle, by  making exemptions, it involves us in our
  present embarrassment.[34] [emphasis added]
<P>
  Rep. Randolph,  in arguing for a reduction of the standing
army on  January 5,  1800, emphasized  that standing  armies
were not  only "useless  and enormous expense", but contrary
to the spirit of the Constitution:
<P>
  A people  who mean to continue free must be prepared to
  meet danger  in person, not to rely upon the fallacious
  protection of mercenary armies.[35]
<P>
  Current   U.S.   law   still   recognizes   this   organic
relationship between the people and the militia:
<P>
  311. Militia: composition and classes
<P>
  (a) The  militia of  the United  States consists of all
  able-bodied males  at least 17 years of age and, except
  as provided  in section 313 of title 32, under 45 years
  of age  who are,  or who  have made  a  declaration  of
  intent to  become, citizens of the United States and of
  female  citizens   of  the   United  States   who   are
  commissioned officers of the National Guard.
<P>
  (b) The classes of the militia are --
<P>
  (1)  the  organized  militia,  which  consists  of  the
  National Guard and the Naval Militia; and
<P>
  (2) the  unorganized militia,  which  consists  of  the
  members of  the militia  who are  not  members  of  the
  National Guard or the Naval Militia.[36]
<P>
  Indeed, the  current National  Guard was  organized  under
Congress' power to "raise and support armies", and not under
the  "organizing,   arming  and  disciplining  the  Militia"
provision, since  the militia  "can be called forth only 'to
execute the  laws of  the Union,  suppress insurrections and
repel invasions.'"[37]
<P>
More recently,  the U.S. Supreme Court in U.S. v. Verdugo-Urquidez (1990)
explicitly  recognized  that  "the  people" referred to  in the Second
Amendment has the same meaning as it does in the rest of the Bill of Rights:
<P>
  Contrary to  the suggestion  of amici  curiae that  the
  Framers used  this phrase "simply to avoid [an] awkward
  rhetorical redundancy,"  ... "the  people" seems  to have
  been a  term of  art employed  in select  parts of  the
  Constitution.     The  Preamble   declares   that   the
  Constitution is ordained and established by "the People
  of the  United States."   The Second Amendment protects
  "the right  of the  people to  keep and bear Arms," and
  the Ninth  and Tenth  Amendments provide  that  certain
  rights and  powers are retained by and reserved to "the
  people."   See also  U.S. Const.,  Amdt. 1,  ("Congress
  shall make no law ... abridging ... the right of the people
  peaceably to assemble"); Art. I, - 2, cl. 1 ("The House
  of Representatives  shall be composed of Members chosen
  every second Year by the People of the several States")
  (emphasis added).  While this textual exegesis is by no
  means  conclusive,   it  suggests   that  "the  people"
  protected by the Fourth Amendment, and by the First and
  Second Amendments,  and to  whom rights  and powers are
  reserved in the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, refers to a
  class of  persons who  are part of a national community
  or who  have otherwise  developed sufficient connection
  with  this  country  to  be  considered  part  of  that
  community.[38]
<P>
  Federalists and  Antifederalists debating the Constitution
in state  ratifying conventions,  the Militia  Act of  1792,
current federal  and state  laws, all agree that the militia
was not  a standing  army, not  a "select  militia" like the
National Guard,  but the  adult free  male citizens  of  the
country.
<P>REFERENCES:
<BR>  14 Jonathan Elliot, The Debates of the Several State
Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution,
(New York, Burt Franklin: 1888), 3:425-426.
<BR>  15 Elliot, 3:380.
<BR>  16 Elliot, 3:112-113.
<BR>  17 Elliot, 3:378.
<BR>  18 Elliot, 3:401.
<BR>  19 Alexander Contee Hanson, Remarks on the Proposed Plan of a Federal
     Government, 21, in Paul Ford, ed., Pamphlets On The Constitution of the
     United States, (Brooklyn, NY: 1888), 234-235.
<BR>  20 Elliot, 2:549.
<BR>  21 Elliot, 2:552.
<BR>  22 Elliot, 2:552.
<BR>  23 Elliot, 2:554.
<BR>  24 Paul Ford, 133.
<BR>  25 Tench Coxe, An Examination of the Constitution for the
United States of America, 20-21, in Paul Ford, 150-151.
<BR>  26 Ibid., 21.
<BR>  27 Paul Ford, 277.
<BR>  28 Richard Henry Lee, Letters of a Federal Farmer, 25, in
Paul Ford, 305.
<BR>  29 Ibid.
<BR>  30 Jacob E. Cooke, ed., The Federalist, (Middletown, CT,
Wesleyan University Press: 1961), 320.
<BR>  31 Ibid., 321.
<BR>  32 Senate Subcommittee on The Constitution Staff,
"History: Second Amendment Right To 'Keep and Bear Arms'", 7.
<BR>  33 Bickford & Veit, 5:1460-1462.  Attempts to find the
original Militia Act of 1792 as passed by Congress, were
fruitless.  [I've since found it -- this is old text.]
<BR>  34 Elliot, 4:423.
<BR>  35 Elliot, 4:411-412.
<BR>  36 10 USC -311.  Similar provisions exist in many state
codes -- see California Military & Veterans Code,  sec. 120-123.
<BR>  37 Senate Subcommittee on The Constitution Staff,
"History: Second Amendment Right To 'Keep and Bear Arms'", 11.
<BR>  38 110 U.S. 1060-1061.
<HR>
You might try and get the following book, if you can find a copy:
<P>
FOR THE DEFENSE OF THEMSELVES AND THE STATE:
<BR>LEGAL CASE STUDIES OF THE 2nd AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION
<BR> by Clayton E. Cramer; Wakefield, NH
<BR>Hollowbrook Pub. (1992); ISBN: 0-89341-723-8
<P>
A good introduction to background on gun control (why it doesn't work, numbers,
etc.) is David B. Kopel's "Hold Your Fire" in the Winter 1993 issue of
_Policy Review_ magizine (your campus library should have it).  More complete
information is in Gary Kleck's 1991 book _Point Blank_.
<P>
Kleck, a lifelong liberal Democrat and former supporter of waiting periods,
gives a thorough statistical analysis.  He became well known in right to keep
and bear arms circles for his study "Crime Control Through the Private Use of
Armed Force," published in the socialogical journal _Social Problems_, volume
35 (1988), pp. 1-21.  Kleck used data from various surveys and from official
Department of Justice statistics to estimate the frequency with which crime
is stopped by armed citizens.  The most comprehensive survey he looked at was
conducted by Democratic polling firm Peter Hart and Assoc. on behalf of the
pro-gun control National Association Against Violence.
<P>
Kleck used the data from (among other places) the Hart poll to estimate that
hand guns are used to stop a crime an average of 645,000 times per year.
Moreover, all guns (hand guns, rifles, shotguns combined) are used to stop
roughly 1 million crimes per year.  (I'd use the 645,000 number, though:
most control efforts are directed toward hand guns, and people make
idle claims like "concealable weapons are only useful for committing crimes.)
<P>
Initially, one might compare this with the frequence of violent crime in which
a gun was used.  From the U. S. Bureau of Justice Statistics National Crime
Survey (1987), you will find that there were a total of 541,271 violent
crimes committed with a hand gun in 1985, and 657,119 violent crimes committed
with any gun during 1985.  Thus, either way, we see more civilian defenses
with hand guns and guns in general than crimes committed with a hand gun or
with any gun.
<P>
This comparison, of course, has its limits.  For one thing, we don't know how
gun control would affect the frequency of defenses and crimes.  For some
insight, consider the 1986 National Institute of Justice study by James Wright
and Peter Rossi.  Before doing this and a related NIJ study, sociologist
Wright was on record as favoring stricter controls; Rossi's credentials are
certainly legitimate:  he has served as president of the American Sociological
Association.  Wright and Rossi interviewed convicted felons in 10 state
correctional systems in 1981, and found that the presence and scope of gun
control laws had no effect on criminals' ability to obtain firearms.  (Of
course, convicted felons cannot, after release, legally obtain a gun; they
lose this right, along with the right to vote and various others, and can only
have these restored if they sue and a judge finds in their favor.  So, stricter
controls could not be placed on convicts, seeing as they're not allowed to
possess a firearm anyway.)  Wright and Rossi found that criminals convicted of
a gun-related crime did not expect to have any difficulty obtaining a firearm
the day after release from prison.  Moreover, 83% of convicted gun predators
said that, if they somehow could be stopped from stealing a gun, buying through
a legal surrogate, getting one on the black market, borrowing a gun, etc.,
they would switch to long guns or sawed-off long guns.  As these are more lethal
than hand guns, long guns being used in more crimes would likely increase the
rates of fatalities.
<P>
Kleck's 1991 book (cited above) does a probit regression analysis (i.e., a
regression where what the researcher wants to predict is the probability an
event occurs) to estimate the likelihood an attack takes place during a crime,
that an injury occurs given an attack, and that death results given injury,
in order to judge whether the offender's possessing a firearm makes victim
death more likely.  He found that, overall, the lack of available hand guns
would drop deaths by 1.4%; however, this (he points out) ignores that the
unavailability of firearms would reduce the number of crimes foiled by
armed citizens.  Moreover, if the handguns were replaced by long guns, Kleck's
estimates imply that the number of deaths due to violent crime would increase
by 18.1%.
<P>
What affect would the gun control have on crimes foiled by armed citizens?
An experiment was tried in Orlando, Florida, from Oct 1966 to Mar 1967, in
which the Orlando Police Department trained over 2500 women to use hand guns.
Details of the study are in Alan Krug, "The relationship between firearms
ownership and crime rates," _Congressional Record_ (1968), pp. H570-2.
A follow-up study was published by Kleck and Bourda (1983), in _Law and
Politics Quarterly_, vol. 5, pp. 271-98.  The highlights:  an uninterrupted
time series of Orlando crime trends shows that the rape rate dropped 88% in
1967 from the 1966 level, a far greater decrease than for any previous year.
The rape rate was constant in the rest of Florida and in the U. S.  The only
other crime to drop substantially was burglary.  Thus, the targeted crime and
the one most likely to occur where victims have access to guns dropped.
<P>
Pro gun control forces frequently cite one of several New England Journal of
Medicine studies, claiming that the chances of being killed with a firearm are
anywhere from 5 to 43 times higher than those of killing a burglar (among gun
owners).  The 43 number includes gun suicides; no reputable study has shown
that decreasing gun availability has any affect on the suicide rate.  (It does
affect the gun suicide rate, but other suicide rates increase.)  Moreover,
in below 1/2% of all civilian defenses is the offender actually killed;
hence, even if the 1/43 number were the accurate ratio, it would have to be
multiplied by roughly 200 to compensate for the fact that it only considers
burglars killed, not crimes stopped.  This alone would suggest that owning a
firearm is quite useful for personal defense, but there's more.  None of the
New England Journal of Medicine studies restricted attention to injuries due
to one's own firearm.  Thus, if criminals are harder to disarm than the law
abiding (a reasonable assumption if one believes that criminals don't obey
laws), it is incorrect to compare my rate of killing a burglar with my firearm
with my rate of being killed by a burglar with his:  the point of the studies
was to assess whether a gun is useful for home defense, so it should compare
the likelihood of my being injured with my firearm versus that of my stopping
an injury to me using my firearm.  Also, the New England Jornal of Medicine
studies did not include any firearm defenses against any crime other than
robbery; by contrast, they all counted against firearms any homicides committed
in any setting.
<P>
Oh, yes.  One more thing.  FBI data suggest that the ratio of self-defense
homicides to criminal homicides in Detroit and Dade (Miami, Fl) conties is
roughly .14.  If one takes this to be a national average (on an argument that
the cities are geographically distinct but had similar numbers), one gets an
estimate of roughly 2800 civilian legal defensive homicides per year with a
gun, and 300 with some other weapon (based on 1980 U.S. National Crime and
Health Statistics), versus 368 reported police legal-intervention gun homicides
and 14 police legal-intervention nongun homicides.  By the way, one of the
New England Journal of Medicine studies (Kellerman and Reay, 1986) gives
a ratio of .22 for Seattle for 1978-83, suggesting an even higher number of
criminals killed in self-defense by armed citizens compared with the number
killed by police.
<P>
What about other crimes?  The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics National
Crime Survey for 1979-85 gives the following numbers of completion of robberies
when the victim used various methods of self-protection:
<P>
<PRE>
Method     % completed     % attacked     % injured
------     -----------     ----------     ---------
gun             30.9            25.2           17.4
knife           35.2            55.6           40.3
other weapon    28.9            41.5           22.0
physical force  50.1            75.6           50.8
called 911      63.9            73.5           48.9
reasoned w/
 offender       53.7            48.1           30.7
evasion         50.8            54.7           34.9
compliance      88.5            41.5           24.7
</PRE>
<P>
So, defending oneself against a robber with a gun reduced the chance of injury
by 26% over using a nongun weapon other than a knife (the next best option).
Compared with compliance, one's chance of avoiding injury by defending with a
gun was 42% better.  The margin of error for these numbers is extremely low;
the case with the fewest realizations was defense with a knife, and even for
that, there were 59,813 cases covered.  Thus, these numbers are significant
with as high a level of confidence as one likes.
<P>
The National Crime Survey gives similar numbers for assaults, though those are
even more dramatic.  One who defended oneself against an assault with a gun
had a 23.2% chance of being attacked and a 12.1% chance of being injured.  The
next best choice for avoiding injury was reasoning with the offendor, which
led to a 40.0% chance of attack and a 24.7% chance of injury.  Using another
weapon (nongun, non-knife) led to a 41.4% attack rate and a 25.1% injury rate.
Knives led to a 46.4% attack rate and 29.5% injury rate.  Compliance led to
a 39.9% attack rate (the lowest except for defense with a gun) and a 27.3%
injury rate.
<P>
One other topic is likely to come up, and you should be careful in how you
reply.  Not long ago (within the past 5 years), there was a study (I believe
the New England Journal of Medicine or Journal of the American Medical Assoc)
which compared the homicide rates in Seattle with those in Vancouver, and
claimed that the lower rates in Vancouver were evidence for success of
Canadian gun control.  Two problems:  (1)  The study did not adjust for
demographics.  Seattle has a large, disaffected Hispanic community, whose
homicide rate is considerably higher than that for the rest of Seattle.
When adjustment is made for this, and for the demographic composition of
Vancouver, the homicide rates become very close (I think Seattle's actually
becomes lower).  This is a point that, though valid, I would hesitate to make,
as it would be easy for a critic to misconstrue.  That is, while no one would
maintain that ethnicity causes homicide, one might argue that ethnic strife
is often associated with higher homicide rates.  Nevertheless, a dishonest
opponent would try to depict one who raised this point as a bigot.  Hence, I
offer point (2):  Canada's homicide rate has increased since its radical gun
control law was passed in 1978, and has climbed more rapidly than the U.S.
rate.  If one compares the ratio of homicides in Vancouver and Seattle
prior to 1978, one gets (if memory serves) a much more dramatic disparity than
the post-control study that is often cited.  Therefore, it seems unlikely that
the disparity is due to the Canadian gun control law.
<P>
Someone might try to make other international comparisons:  Japan and England
are favorites of the pro-control forces.  The comparisons are worthless.  First,
you could always counter with information comparisons with Israel and
Switzerland (high gun ownership, low crime) or Mexico (low gun ownership, high
crime).  Second, you might point out that differences in crime rates are
attributable to our revolving-door justice.  E.g., in London, 20% of reported
robberies end in conviction; in New York City, fewer than 5% do.  Moreover,
England has twice as many firearms homicides annually as it did before it
adopted its tough anti-gun laws.
<P>
One way to make some corrected comparisons with Japan (adjusting for judicial
system, cultural differences, etc.) might be to compare homicide rates among
Japanese Americans, who have widespread access to guns because
they live here, but maintain much of their Japanese culture.  Through 1979, the
FBI tracked homicide arrests by race, and included a category for "Japanese."
Applying the fraction of Japanese American arrests to the total number of
homicides during 1976-78, Kleck (in Point Blank, pp. 189 ff.) estimates a
homicide rate for Japanese Americans of 1.04 per 100,000 persons.  By contrast,
the homicide rate in Japan for the same period was 2.45 per 100,000, or 2.3
times higher.
<P>
Some notes about Britain.  Though the British have a much lower gun homicide
rate than we have, they also have a much lower knife homicide rate and a lower
rate of homicide using hands and feet.  Are we to infer, then, that the
British ahve fewer knives or hands and feet than Americans?
<P>
By the way, the leading study of English gun control was done by Colin
Greenwood (_Firearms Control: A Study of Armed Crime and Firearms Control in
England and Wales_.  London: Routledge, 1972.).  Greenwood compiled tables
on gun crime rates and gun ownership rates in all 47 English police force
areas, as of 1969.  He found that "the rate of armed crime is in no way
connected with the density of firearms in the community.  Indeed, if anything,
the reverse appears to be true" (p. 219).  Kleck analyzes Greenwood's data,
and finds that the legal gun owner rate had a correlation of -0.17 with both
offenses involving firearms in general and robberies involving firearms.
Moreover, the differences cannot be attributed to higher concentration of
firearms in rural areas alone.
<HR>
"What the subcommittee on the Constitution uncovered was clear - and
long lost - proof that the Second Amendment to our Constitution was
intended as an individual right of the American citizen to keep and
carry arms in a peaceful manner, for protection of himself, his family,
and his freedoms."
<BR>--Senator Orrin Hatch, Chairman, Subcommittee on the
Constitution - Preface, "The Right To Keep And Bear Arms"
<HR>
"If gun laws in fact worked, the sponsors of this type of legislation should
have no difficulty drawing upon long lists of examples of criminal acts reduced
by such legislation. That they cannot do so after a century and a half of
trying--that they must sweep under the rug the southern attempts at gun control
in the 1870-1910 period, the northeastern attempts in the 1920-1939 period, the
attempts at both Federal and State levels in 1965-1976--establishes the
repeated, complete and inevitable failure of gun laws to control serious crime."
<BR>--Repub. Sen. Orrin Hatch, 1982 Senate Report
<HR>
"The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any
member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to
others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient
warrant."
<BR>--John Stuart Mill, "On Liberty" 1859
<HR>
"The prohibition is general. No clause in the Constitution could by rule
of construction be conceived to give the Congress the power to disarm
the people. Such a flagitious attempt could only be made under some
general pretense by a state legislature. But if in blind pursuit of
inordinate power, either should attempt it, this amendment may be
appealed to as a restraint on both."
<BR>--William Rawle, 1825; considered academically to be an expert commentator
on the Constitution. He was offered the position of the first Attorney General
of the United States, by President Washington.
<HR>
"Government is not reason. It is not eloquence. It is a force, like fire
a dangerous servant and a terrible master."
<BR>--George Washington
<HR>
"The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not infringed; a
well armed, and well regulated militia being the best security of a free
country: but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be
compelled to render military service in person." - [This was Madison's
original proposal for the "Second Amendment"
<BR>--James Madison, I Annuals of Congress 434 (June 8, 1789).
<P>
"It is not certain that with this aid alone [possession of arms], they
would not be able to shake off their yokes. But were the people to
posses the additional advantages of local governments chosen by
themselves, who could collect the national will, and direct the national
force; and of officers appointed out of the militia, by these
governments and attached both to them and to the militia, it may be
affirmed with the greatest assurance, that the throne of every tyranny
in Europe would be speedily overturned, in spite of the legions which
surround it."
<BR>--James Madison "Federalist No. 46"
<P>
"A government resting on the minority is an aristocracy, not a Republic,
and could not be safe with a numerical and physical force against it,
without a standing army, an enslaved press and a disarmed populace." --
James Madison, The Federalist Papers (No. 46).
<P>
"Americans have the right and advantage of being armed - unlike the
citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the
people with arms."
<BR>--James Madison, The Federalist Papers #46 at 243-244
<HR>
"Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that
we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom? Congress shall
have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other
terrible implement of the soldier, are the birth-right of an American
.. The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the
federal or state governments, but where I trust in God it will ever
remain, in the hands of the People."
<BR>--Tench Coxe - 1788.
<P>
"As civil rulers, not having their duty to the people duly before them,
may attempt to tyrannize, ... the people are confirmed by the next
article in their right to keep and bear arms."
<BR>--Tench Coxe in "Remarks on the First Part of the Amendments to the Federal
Constitution", Federal Gazette, June 18, 1789
<HR>
"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who
approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but
downright force. When you give up that force, you are ruined."
<BR>--Patrick Henry, speaking to the Virginia convention for the ratification
of the constitution on the necessity of the right to keep and bear arms.
<P>
"They tell us, Sir, that we are weak -- unable to cope with so
formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the
next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed,
and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we
gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means
of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs, and hugging the
delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and
foot? Sir, we are not weak, if we make a proper use of those means which
the God of nature hath placed in our power."
<P>
"Three millions of People, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in
such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force
which our enemy can send against us. Beside, Sir, we shall not fight our
battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of
Nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us." --
<P>
"The battle, Sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the
active, the brave. Besides, Sir, we have no election. If we were base
enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest.
There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are
forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is
inevitable; and let it come! I repeat, Sir, let it come!"
<P>
"It is in vain, Sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace,
Peace! -- but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next
gale that sweeps from the North will bring to our ears the clash of
resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we
here idle? What is it that Gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life
so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains
and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may
take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"
<BR>--Patrick Henry (1736-1799) in his famous "The War Inevitable" speech,
March, 1775
<HR>
"The constitutions of most of our states [and of the United States]
assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise
it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times
armed and that they are entitled to freedom of person, freedom of
religion, freedom of property, and freedom of press."
<BR>--Thomas Jefferson
<P>
"If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change
its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety
with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to
combat it."
<BR>--Thomas Jefferson, 1st Inaugural, 4-Mar-1801
<P>
"And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not
warned from time to time that this people preserve the spirit of
resistance? Let them take arms ... The tree of liberty must be refreshed
from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
<BR>--Thomas Jefferson in a letter to William S. Smith in 1787. Taken from
Jefferson, On Democracy 20, S. Padover ed., 1939.
<P>
"Enlighten people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and
mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day."
<BR>--Thomas Jefferson
<P>
"The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time."
<BR>--Thomas Jefferson (1774)
<P>
"No man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. The strongest reason for
the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last
resort, to protect themselves against the tyranny in government.
<BR>--Thomas Jefferson, June 1776
<P>
"A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I
advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives
boldness, enterprise, and independence to the mind. Games played with
the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and
stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be the constant
companion of your walk."
<BR>--Encyclopedia of Thomas Jefferson, 318 (Foley, Ed., reissued 1967)
<HR>
"...for it is a truth, which the experience of all ages has attested,
that the people are commonly most in danger when the means of insuring
their rights are in the possession of those of whom they entertain the
least suspicion."
<BR>--Alexander Hamilton
<P>
"The best that we can hope for concerning the people at large is that
they be properly armed."
<BR>--Alexander Hamilton (The Federalist Papers at 184-8)
<HR>
"Arms in the hands of citizens [may] be used at individual discretion...
in private self-defense..."
<BR>--John Adams, A Defense of the Constitutions of the Government
of the USA, 471 (1788).
<P>
"Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be
unfurled, there will be America's heart, her benedictions and prayers,
but she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the
well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion
and vindicator of her own."
<BR>--John Quincy Adams, 1821.
<HR>
"That the said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize
Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press or the rights of
conscience; or to prevent *the people* of the United States who are
peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms ..."
<BR>--Samuel Adams in arguing for a Bill of Rights, from the book
"Massachusetts," published by Pierce & Hale, Boston, 1850, pg. 86-87.
<HR>
"To preserve liberty it is essential that the whole body of the people
always possess arms and be taught alike, especially when young, how to
use them..."
<BR> [Contrast the above with U.S. Senator Diane Feinstein's statement:
"Banning guns addresses a fundamental right of Americans to feel safe"
as reported on 18 November, 1993, by the Associated Press.]
<P>
"The militia, when properly formed, are in fact the people themselves,
.. [T]he Constitution ought to secure a genuine [militia] and guard
against a select militia, by providing that the militia shall always be
kept well organized, armed, and disciplined, and include ... all men
capable of bearing arms;..."
<BR>--Richard Henry Lee writing in "Letters
from the Federal Farmer to the Republic", 1788, page 169.
<HR>
"What, Sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the establishment
of a standing army, the bane of liberty.... Whenever Governments mean to
invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to
destroy the militia, in order to raise an army upon their ruins."
<P>
"This declaration of rights, I take it, is intended to secure the people
against the maladministration of the Government, if we could suppose
that, in all cases, the rights of the people would be attended to, the
occasion for guards of this kind would be removed. Now, I am
apprehensive, sir, that this clause would give an opportunity to the
people in power to destroy the Constitution itself. They can declare who
are those religiously scrupulous, and prevent them from bearing arms."
<BR>--Rep. Eldridge Gerry of Massachusetts (spoken during floor debate over
the Second Amendment [I Annals of Congress at 750 {August 17, 1789}])
17, 1789)
<HR>
[The American Colonies are] "all democratic governments, where the power
is in the hands of the people and where there is not the least
difficulty or jealousy about putting arms into the hands of every man in
the country. [European countries should not] be ignorant of the strength
and the force of such a form of government and how strenuously and
almost wonderfully people living under one have sometimes exerted
themselves in defence of their rights and liberties and how fatally it
has ended with many a man and many a state who have entered into
quarrels, wars and contests with them."
<BR>--George Mason from "Remarks on Annual Elections for the Fairfax
Independent Company" quoted from The Papers of George Mason, 1725-1792
edited by Robert A. Rutland [Chapel Hill, 1970]
<P>
"That a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people
trained to arms, is the proper, natural and safe defense of a free
state; that standing armies in time of peace should be avoided as
dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases the military should be under
strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power."
<BR>--George Mason, Article 13 of The Virginia Declaration of Rights of 1776.
<P>
George Mason, Framer of the Declaration of Rights, Virginia, 1776, which
became the basis for the U.S. Bill of Rights, 3 Elliot, Debates at 425-426:
"I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a few
public officials.  To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way
to enslave them..." (Also see "Debates" at 380.)
<BR> [Contrast the above with U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan's statement:
"With a 10,000% tax we could tax them out of existence."
as reported on 4 November, 1993, by the Washington Post.]
<HR>
"They that would give up essential liberty for a little temporary safety
deserve neither liberty nor safety."
<BR>--Benjamin Franklin
<HR>
"Instances of the licentious and outrageous behavior of the military
conservators still multiply upon us, some of which are of such nature,
and have been carried to so great lengths, as must serve fully to evince
that a late vote of this town, calling upon its inhabitants to provide
themselves with arms for their defence, was a measure as it was legal
natural right which the people have reserved to themselves, confirmed by
the Bill of Rights, (the post-Cromwellian English bill of rights) to
keep arms for their own defence; and as Mr. Blackstone observes, it is
to be made use of when the sanctions of society and law are found
insufficient to restrain the violence of oppression."
<BR>--"A Journal of the Times" (1768-1769) colonial Boston newspaper article.
<HR>
<BR>Sentry: "Halt, who goes there?"
<BR>Voice : "An American."
<BR>Sentry: "Advance and recite the second verse of the Star Spangled Banner."
<BR>Voice : "I don't know it."
<BR>Sentry: "Proceed, American."
<HR>
"The people of the various provinces are strictly forbidden to have in
their possession any swords, bows, spears, firearms, or other types of
arms. The possession of these elements makes difficult the collection of
taxes and dues, and tends to permit uprising. Therefore, the heads of
provinces, official agents, and deputies are ordered to collect all the
weapons mentioned above and turn them over to the government."
<BR>--Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Shogun, August 29, 1558, Japan.
<HR>
"War to the hilt between capitalism and communism is inevitable. Today,
of course, we are not strong enough to attack. Our time will come in 20
or 30 years. In order to win, we shall need the element of surprise. The
bourgeoisie will have to be put to sleep, so we shall begin by launching
the most spectacular peace movement on record. There will be
electrifying overtures and unheard of concessions. The capitalist
countries, stupid and decadent, will rejoice to cooperate in their own
destruction. They will leap at another chance to be friends. As soon as
their guard is down, we shall smash them with our clenched fist."
<BR>--Quoted by Dmitri Z. Manuisky, Lenin School of Political Warfare (1931).
<HR>
"Liberals, it has been said, are generous with other peoples' money,
except when it comes to questions of national survival when they prefer
to be generous with other people's freedom and security."
<BR>--William F.  Buckley
<HR>
"In recent years it has been suggested that the Second Amendment
protects the "collective" right of states to maintain militias, while it
does not protect the right of "the people" to keep and bear arms... The
phrase "the people" meant the same thing in the Second Amendment as it
did in the First, Fourth, Ninth and Tenth Amendments -- that is, each
and every free person. A select militia defined as only the privileged
class entitled to keep and bear arms was considered an anathema to a
free society, in the same way that Americans denounced select spokesmen
approved by the government as the only class entitled to the freedom of
the press."
<BR>--Stephen P. Holbrook, "That Every Man Be Armed: The Evolution of a
Constitutional Right", University of New Mexico Press, 1984, pp. 83-84.
<HR>
"He that violates his oath profanes the Divinity of faith itself."
<BR>--Cicero (found on LA City Hall)
<HR>
"Disperse you Rebels - Damn you, throw down your Arms and disperse."
<BR>--Maj. John Pitcairn, Lexington, Massachusetts, April 19, 1775
<HR>
"Those, who have the command of the arms in a country are masters of the
state, and have it in their power to make what revolutions they please.
[Thus,] there is no end to observations on the difference between the
measures likely to be pursued by a minister backed by a standing army,
and those of a court awed by the fear of an armed people."
<BR>--Aristotle.  Quoted by John Trenchard and Walter Moyle "An Argument
Shewing, That a Standing Army Is Inconsistent with a Free Government, and
Absolutely Destructive to the Constitution of the English Monarchy"
[London, 1697]
<HR>
"To avoid domestic tyranny, the people must be armed to stand upon
[their] own Defence; which if [they] are enabled to do, [they] shall
never be put upon it, but [their] Swords may grow rusty in [their]
hands; for that Nation is surest to live in Peace, that is most capable
of making War; and a Man that hath a Sword by his side, shall have least
occasion to make use of it."
<BR>--John Trenchard & Walter Moyle, "An Argument Shewing, That a Standing
Army is Inconsistent With a Free Government, and Absolutely Destructive to
the Constitution of the English Monarchy" [London, 1697] ("An Argument")
<HR>
"Men that are above all Fear, soon grow above all Shame."
<BR>--John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon "Cato's Letters: Or, Essays on Liberty,
Civil and Religious, and Other Important Subjects" [London, 1755]
<HR>
"The right of self-defense is the first law of nature; in most
governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within
the narrowest possible limits. ... and [when] the right of the people to
keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext whatsoever,
prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of
destruction."
<BR>--St. George Tucker, Judge of the Virginia Supreme Court
and U.S. District Court of Virginia in, I Blackstone COMMENTARIES St.
George Tucker Ed., 1803, pg. 300 (App.)
<HR>
Too often foreign aid is when the poor people of a rich nation send
their money to the rich people of a poor nation.
<HR>
"No kingdom can be secured otherwise than by arming the people. The
possession of arms is the distinction between a freeman and a slave. He,
who has nothing, and who himself belongs to another, must be defended by
him, whose property he is, and needs no arms. But he, who thinks he is
his own master, and has what he can call his own, ought to have arms to
defend himself, and what he possesses; else he lives precariously, and
at discretion."
<BR>--James Burgh "Political Disquisitions: Or, an Enquiry
into Public Errors, Defects, and Abuses" [London, 1774-1775]
<HR>
"The difficulty here has been to persuade the citizens to keep arms, not
to prevent them from being employed for violent purposes."
<BR>--Dwight "Travels in New-England"
<HR>
"The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been
considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it
offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power
of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first
instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them."
<P>
"...And yet, though this truth would seem so clear, and the importance
of a well regulated militia would seem so undeniable, it cannot be
disguised that among the American people there is a growing indifference
to any system of militia discipline, and a strong disposition, from a
sense of its burdens, to be rid of all regulations."
<P>
"How it is practicable to keep the people duly armed without some
organization, it is difficult to see. There is certainly no small
danger, that indifference may lead to disgust, and disgust to contempt;
and thus gradually undermine all the protection intended by this clause
of our national bill of rights."
<BR>-- Joseph Story "Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States;
With a Preliminary Review of the Constitutional History of the Colonies and
States before the Adoption of the Constitution" [Boston, 1833]
<HR>
"The tank, the B-52, the fighter-bomber, the state-controlled police and
military are the weapons of dictatorship. The rifle is the weapon of
democracy. If guns are outlawed, only the government will have guns.
Only the police, the secret police, the military. The hired servants of
our rulers. Only the government-and a few outlaws. I intend to be among
the outlaws."
<BR>--Edward Abbey "The Right to Arms" [New York, 1979]
<HR>
"An armed republic submits less easily to the rule of one of its
citizens than a republic armed by foreign forces. Rome and Sparta were
for many centuries well armed and free. The Swiss are well armed and
enjoy great freedom. Among other evils caused by being disarmed, it
renders you contemptible. It is not reasonable to suppose that one who
is armed will obey willingly one who is unarmed; or that any unarmed man
will remain safe among armed servants."
<P>
"... The answer is that one would like to be both the one and the other;
but because it is difficult to combine them, it is far better to be
feared than loved if you cannot be both. ...Men worry less about doing
an injury to one who makes himself loved than to one who makes himself
feared. The bond of love is one which men, wretched creatures that they
are, break when it is to their advantage to do so; but fear is
strengthened by a dread of punishment which is always effective."
<BR>--Machiavelli's "The Prince", Chapter 17
<HR>
In the arguments over the validity of the Theory of Quantum Mechanics,
Dr. Albert Einstein uttered his now oft-quoted line, "God does not play
dice with the Universe", but rarely quoted is Dr. Neils Bohr's response,
"Albert, stop telling God what to do."
<HR>
"The strength of the Constitution lies entirely in the determination of
each citizen to defend it. Only if every single citizen feels duty bound
to do his share in this defense are the constitutional rights secure."
<P>
"No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single
experiment can prove me wrong."
<BR>--Albert Einstein
<HR>
"If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was
landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms -- never -- never --
NEVER! You cannot conquer America."
<BR>--William Pitt, Earl of Chatham Speech in the House of Lords November
18, 1777
<HR>
"Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never -- in nothing,
great or small, large or petty -- never give in except to convictions of
honor and good sense."
<BR>--Winston Spencer Churchill Address at Harrow School, October 29, 1941
<P>
"Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however
long and hard the road may be; for without victory there is no
survival."
<P>
"In war you can only be killed once, but in politics, many times."
<P>
"A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject."
<P>
"I am always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught."
<P>
"Never turn your back on a threatened danger and try to run away from
it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it
promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half.
Never run away from anything. Never!"
<BR>--Winston Churchill
<HR>
"...the rank and file are usually much more primitive than we imagine.
Propaganda must therefore always be essentially simple and repetitious."
<P>
"The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless
one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly...it must confine
itself to a few points and repeat them over and over."
<BR>--Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Propaganda Minister
<HR>
"Germans who wish to use firearms should join the SS or the SA - ordinary
citizens don't need guns, as their having guns doesn't serve the State."
<BR>--Heinrich Himmler
<HR>
"The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subjected
people to carry arms, history shows that all conquerors who have allowed their
subjected peoples to carry arms have prepared their own fall"
<BR>--Adolph Hitler, Edict of March 18, 1938.
<HR>
"All military type firearms are to be handed in immediately ... The SS, SA
and Stahlhelm give every respectable German man the opportunity of campaigning
with them.  Therefore anyone who does not belong to one of the above named
organizations and who unjustifiably nevertheless keeps his weapon ... must be
regarded as an enemy of the national government."
<BR>--SA Oberfuhrer of Bad Tolz, March, 1933.
<HR>
God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always ready to
guard and defend it."
<BR>--Daniel Webster
<HR>
"Democracy, the practice of self-government, is a covenant among free
men to respect the rights and liberties of their fellows"
<P>
"Those who have long enjoyed such privileges as we enjoy forget in time
that men have died to win them."
<BR>--Franklin D.  Roosevelt
<HR>
"You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I
say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!"
<BR>--Oliver Cromwell in dissolving Parliament, 1653
<HR>
"Congress may give us a select militia which will, in fact, be a
standing army -- or Congress, afraid of a general militia, may say there
shall be no militia at all. When a select militia is formed; the people
in general may be disarmed."
<BR>--John Smilie
<HR>
"If the laws of the Union were oppressive, they could not carry them
into effect, if the people were possessed of the proper means of
defence."
<BR>--William Lenoir
<HR>
"Whenever people...entrust the defence of their country to a regular,
standing army, composed of mercenaries, the power of that country will
remain under the direction of the most wealthy citizens..."
<BR>--"A Framer" in The Independent Gazetteer, 1791
<HR>
"A cardinal rule of bureaucracy is that it is better to extend an error
than to admit a mistake."
<BR>--Colin Greenwood
<HR>
" You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will
convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would
do and the harm it would cause if improperly administered."
<BR>--Lyndon Baines Johnson, former Senator and President.
<HR>
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army
pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and
gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege."
<BR>--Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
<HR>
"The right of citizens to bear arms is just one guarantee against
arbitrary government, one more safeguard against the tyranny which now
appears remote in America, but which historically has proved to be
always possible."
<BR>--Senator Hubert Humphrey
<HR>
"Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look
upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest."
<BR>--Mahatma Ghandi
<HR>
"There is only one tactical principal which is not subject to change. It
is to use the means at hand to inflict the maximum amount of wounds,
death, and destruction in the minimum amount of time."
<P>
"The object of war is not to die for your country, but to make the other
bastard die for his."
<BR>--General George S. Patton
<HR>
"We always hire Democratic Congressmen who promise to give us from the
government all the things we want. And we always hire Republican
Presidents to make sure we don't have to pay for it."
<BR>--T.J. Rodgers quoting in REASON
<HR>
"The difference between death and taxes is death doesn't get worse every
time Congress meets."
<BR>--Will Rogers
<HR>
"They have rights who dare maintain them."
<BR>--James Russell Lowell
<HR>
"The one weapon every man, soldier, sailor, or airman-should be able to
use effectively is the rifle. It is always his weapon of personal safety
in an emergency, and for many it is the primary weapon of offence and
defense. Expertness in its use cannot be over emphasized."
<BR>--General (5 star and later U.S. President) Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1943.
<P>
"I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has
seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity."
<BR>--5 Star General and former President Dwight David Eisenhower
<HR>
We, free citizens of the Great Republic, feel an honest pride in her
greatness, her strength, her just and gentle government, her wide
liberties, her honored name, her stainless history, her unbesmirched
flag, her hands clean from oppression of the weak and from malicious
conquest, her hospitable door that stands open to the hunted and the
persecuted of all nations; we are proud of the judicious respect in
which she is held by monarchies which hem her in on every side, and
proudest of all of that loft patriotism which we inherited from our
fathers, which we have kept pure, and which won our liberties in the
beginning and has preserved them unto this day. While patriotism endures
the Republic is safe, her greatness is secure, and against them the
powers of the earth can not prevail."
<P>
"Courage is resistance of fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear."
<P>
"When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant, I could hardly
stand to have him around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was
astonished at how much he had learned in seven years."
<BR>--Mark Twain
<HR>
Kill one man and you are a murderer. Kill millions and you are a
conqueror. Kill everyone and you are a God.
<BR>--Jean Rostand
<HR>
"...while the legislature has power in the most comprehensive manner to
regulate the carrying and use firearms, that body has no power to
constitute it a crime for a person, alien or citizen, to possess a
revolver for the legitimate defense of himself and his property. The
provisions in the Constitution granting the right to all persons to bear
arms is a limitation upon the power of the legislature to enact any law
to the contrary."
<BR>--PEOPLE v. ZERILLO 219 Mich 635
<HR>
"...The police power of the State to preserve public safety and peace
and to regulate the bearing of arms cannot fairly be restricted to the
mere establishment of conditions under which all sorts of weapons may be
privately possessed, but it may account of the character and ordinary
use of weapons and interdict those whose customary employment by
individuals is to violate the law. The power is, of course, subject to
the limitation that its exercise be reasonable and it cannot
constitutionally result in the prohibition of the possession of those
arms which, by the common opinion and usage of law-abiding people, are
proper and legitimate to be kept upon private premises for the
protection of person and property."
<BR>--PEOPLE v. BROWN 253 Mich 537
<HR>
"...The right of the people peacefully to assemble for lawful purposes
existed long before the adoption of the Constitution of the United
States. In fact, it is and always has been one of the attributes of a
free government. It `derives its source,' to use the language of Chief
Justice Marshall, in Gibbons v Ogden, 9 Wheat., 211, `from those laws
whose authority is acknowledged by civilized man throughout the world.'
It is found wherever civilization exists. It was not, therefore, a right
granted to the people by the Constitution... The second and tenth counts
are equally defective. The right there specified is that of `bearing
arms for a lawful purpose.' This is not a right granted by the
constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependant upon that instrument
for its existence. The Second Amendment declares that it shall not
infringed; but this, as has been seen, means no more than it shall not
be infringed by Congress. This is one of the amendments that has no
other effect than to restrict the powers of the National Government..."
<BR>--UNITED STATES v. CRUIKSHANK; 92 US 542; (1875)
<HR>
"The rifle of all descriptions, the shot gun, the musket and repeater
are such arms; and that under the Constitution the right to keep and
bear arms cannot be infringed or forbidden by the legislature."
<P>
"...the right to keep arms necessarily involves the right to purchase
them, to keep them in a state of efficiency for use, and to purchase and
provide ammunition suitable for such arms, and to keep them in repair."
<BR>--ANDREWS v. STATE; 50 Tenn. (3 Heisk) 165,179,8 Am. Rep. 8, 14
(Tennessee Supreme Court, 1871)
<HR>
"...we incline to the opinion that the Legislature cannot inhibit the
citizen from bearing arms openly, because it authorizes him to bear them
for the purposes of defending himself and the State, and it is only when
carried openly, that they can be efficiently used for defence."
<BR>--STATE v.  REID; 1 Ala. 612, 619, 35 Am. Dec. 47; (1840)
<HR>
"The practical and safe construction is that which must have been in the
minds of those who framed our organic law. The intention was to embrace
the 'arms,' an acquaintance with whose use was necessary for their
protection against the usurpation of illegal power - such as rifles,
muskets, shotguns, swords and pistols. These are now but little used in
war; still they are such weapons that they or their like can still be
considered as 'arms' which the [the people] have aright to bear."
<BR>--STATE v. KERNER; 181 NC 574, 107 SE 222, 224-25 (North Carolina
Supreme Court, 1921.)
<HR>
"If the text and purpose of the Constitutional guarantee relied
exclusively on the preference for a militia `for defense of the State,'
then the terms `arms' most likely would include only the modern day
equivalents of the weapons used by the Colonial Militia Men."
<BR>--STATE v. KESSLER, 289 Or. 359, 369, 614 p. 2d 94,99 (Oregon Supreme
Court, 1980.)
<HR>
"To prohibit a citizen from wearing or carrying a war arm . . . is an
unwarranted restriction upon the constitutional right to keep and bear
arms. If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with
army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and
gallows, and not by a general deprivation of constitutional privilege."
<BR>--WILSON v. STATE, 33 Ark. 557, at 560, 34 Am. Rep. 52, at 54 (1878)
<HR>
"`The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.'
The right of the whole people, old and young, men, women and boys, and
not militia only, to keep and bear arms of every description, and not
such merely as are used by the militia, shall not be infringed, curtailed,
or broken in upon, in the smallest degree; and all this for the important
end to be attained: the rearing up and qualifying a well-regulated militia,
so vitally necessary to the security of a free State.
Our opinion is that any law, State or Federal, is repugnant to the
Constitution, and void, which contravenes this right."
<BR>--NUNN v. STATE, 1 Ga. (1 Kel.) 243, at 251 (1846)
<HR>
"[T]he right to keep and bear arms guaranteed by the second amendment to
the federal constitution is not carried over into the fourteenth
amendment so as to be applicable to the states."
<BR>--STATE v. AMOS, 343 So.  2d 166, 168 (La. 1977)
<HR>
"The end move in politics is always to pick up a gun."
<BR>--R. Buckminster Fuller
<HR>
"If there is one basic element in our Constitution, it is civilian
control of the military."
<BR>--President Harry S. Truman (1884-1972)
<HR>
A camel is a horse designed by a committee and an elephant is a mouse
built to military specifications."
<BR>--from page 321 of "Cryptoanalysis for Microcomputers" by Caxton C.
Foster (University of Massachusetts), Hayden Book Co. Inc., 1982.
<HR>
"It appears that the murder rate inside prisons is ten times higher than
that outside prisons. It must be due to all those Kalashnikov rifles
that are issued to prisoners upon their incarceration."
<BR>--Jeff Cooper in Guns & Ammo magazine, August, 1989.
<HR>
"In all history the only bright rays cutting the gloom of oppression
have come from men who would rather get hurt than give in."
<BR>--Jeff Cooper; from "Pistols and the Law" in "Cooper on Handguns"
<HR>
"Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
<BR>--Santayana
<HR>
"The proper means of increasing the love we bear our native country is
to reside some time in a foreign one."
<BR>--William Shenstone
<HR>
"Americans may like guns because they were reminiscent of the smell of
outdoors, military heroism, the intensity of the hunt or merely because
they are fascinated by the finely machined metal parts. Maybe the origin
of a gun speaks of history; maybe the gun makes a man's home seem to him
less vulnerable; maybe these feelings are more justified in the country
than in the city; but, above all, many of us believe that these feelings
are a man's own business and need not be judged by the Department of the
Treasury or the Department of Justice."
<BR>--Samuel Cummings
<HR>
"If a gun bill will pass because of the politics of the situation, you
must see to it that its burdens are imposed upon a man because of a
criminal background and not because he is an ordinary citizen and
perhaps poor."
<BR>--Gen. James H. Doolittle
<HR>
"...and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one."
<BR>--Luke 22:36
<HR>
"In war, there is no substitute for victory."
<BR>--General Douglas MacArthur
<HR>
"In war there is no second prize for the runner-up."
<BR>--General Omar Bradley.
<HR>
"Wars may be fought with weapons but they are won by men. It is the
spirit of men who follow and of the man who leads that gains the victory."
<BR>--General George Patton
<HR>
The only way to win a war is to prevent it.
<BR>--General George Marshall
<HR>
<CENTER>MILITARY APHORISMS</CENTER>
<BR>Never share a foxhole with anyone braver than you are.
<BR>If your attack is going really well, it's an ambush.
<BR>No military combat plan survives the first contact with the enemy intact.
<BR>If you are short of everything except enemy, then you are in combat.
<BR>Incoming fire has the right of way.
<BR>If the enemy is in range, so are you.
<BR>Friendly fire - isn't.
<BR>Things that must be together to work usually are not shipped together.
<BR>Anything you do can get you shot - including doing nothing.
<BR>Make it too tough for the enemy to get in, and you can't get out.
<BR>Tracers work both ways.
<BR>The only thing more accurate than incoming enemy fire is incoming friendly
fire.
<BR>Professional soldiers are predictable, but the world is full of amateurs.
<HR>
The proper means of increasing the love we bear our native country is to
reside some time in a foreign one.
<BR>--William Shenstone
<HR>
"You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a
reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating
the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for
independence."
<BR>--Charles A. Beard
<HR>
The anti-gun movement is like a pair of baby's diapers: always on your
ass and full of shit.
<BR>--Richard Bash - Combat Arms BBS SysOp.
<HR>
"The great body of our citizens shoot less as times goes on. We should
encourage rifle practice among schoolboys, and indeed among all classes,
as well as in the military services by every means in our power. Thus,
and not otherwise, may we be able to assist in preserving peace in the
world... The first step -- in the direction of preparation to avert war if
possible, and to be fit for war if it should come -- is to teach men to shoot!"
<BR>--President Theodore Roosevelt's last message to Congress.
<HR>
"This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine. My
rifle is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must
master my life."
<P>
"My rifle, without me, is useless. Without my rifle, I am useless. I
must fire my rifle true. I must shoot straighter than my enemy who is
trying to kill me. I must shoot him before he shoots me. I will..."
<P>
"My rifle and myself know that what counts in this war is not the rounds
we fire, the noise of our burst, nor the smoke we make. We know it is
only the hits that count. We will hit..."
<P>
"My rifle is human, even as I, because it is my life. Thus, I will learn it
as a brother. I will learn its weaknesses, its strength, its parts, its
accessories, its sights, and its barrel. I will ever guard it against the
ravages of weather and damage. I will keep my rifle clean and ready, even as
I am clean and ready. We will become part of each other. We will..."
<P>
"Before God I swear this creed: My rifle and myself are the defenders of
our country. We are the masters of our enemy. We are the saviors of my
life. So be it until victory is America's and there is no enemy, but Peace!"
<BR>--From "My Rifle" by Major General W.H. Rupertus, USMC.
<HR>
"A man with his heart in his profession imagines and finds resources
where the worthless and lazy despair."
<BR>--Frederic the Great, in instructions to his Generals.
<HR>
"All military science becomes a matter of simple prudence, its principle
object being to keep an unstable balance from shifting suddenly to our
disadvantage and the proto-war from changing into total war."
<BR>--Clausewitz (From the book "On War" by Raymond Aron, Doubleday, New York,
1959).
<HR>
"The American Revolution was a beginning, not a consummation."
<BR>--Woodrow Wilson, 28th President of the United States (1856-1924).
<HR>
"With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but
with tyrants I will give no quarter, nor waste arguments where they will
be certainly be lost."
<BR>--William Lloyd Garrison
<HR>
No combat-ready squad ever passed inspection. No inspection-ready squad
ever passed combat.
<BR>--Heard in Vietnam
<HR>
C.S. Lewis:  "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims
may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons
than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may
sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those
who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do
so with the approval of their consciences."
<HR>
"War is an ugly thing but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and
degraded state of moral and patriotic feelings which thinks that nothing
is worth fighting for is much worse. A man who has nothing for which he
is willing to fight, nothing he cares about more than his personal
safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free unless
made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
<BR>--Seen on a poster at a gun show. No author was cited for this truly
excellent statement.
<HR>
"I was that which others did not want to be. I went where others feared
to go, and did what others failed to do. I asked nothing from those who
gave nothing, and reluctantly accepted the thought of eternal
loneliness...should I fail. I have seen the face of terror, felt the
stinging cold of fear; and enjoyed the sweet taste of a moment's love. I
have cried, pained, and hoped...but most of all, I have lived times
others would say were best forgotten. At least someday I will be able to
say that I was proud of what I was...a soldier."
<BR>--George L. Skypeck
<HR>
"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers."
<BR>--William Shakespeare; Henry VI, Act IV, Scene II, spoken by Dick
the Butcher.
<HR>
"Tell General Howard I know my heart. What he told me before, I have in
my heart. I am tired of fighting. Our chiefs are killed. Looking Glass
is dead. Toohoolhoolzote is dead. The old men are all killed. It is the
young men who say yes or no. He who led the young men [Ollokot; his
brother] is dead. It is cold and we have no blankets. The little
children are freezing to death. I want time to look for my children, and
see how many of them I can find. Maybe I shall find them among the dead.
Hear me, my chiefs. I am tired; my heart is sick and sad. From where the
sun now stands, I will fight no more forever."
<BR>--Chief Joseph; Wallowa Nez Perc tribe; October 5, 1877; Montana,
near the Canadian border.
<HR>
"No man is competent unless he can stalk alone and armed in the wilderness."
<BR>--Townsend Whelen
<HR>
"Indeed, I am now of the opinion that a compelling case for "stricter
gun control" cannot be made, at least not on empirical grounds. I have
nothing but respect for the various pro-gun control advocates with whom
I have come in contact over the past years. They are, for the most part,
sensitive, humane and intelligent people, and their ultimate aim, to
reduce death and violence in our society, is one that every civilized
person must share. I have, however, come to be convinced that they are
barking up the wrong tree."
<BR>--James Wright (scholarly research who collaborates with Peter Rossi)
<HR>
"Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius,
power and magic in it."
<BR>--Goethe
<HR>
LOCK, STOCK, AND BARREL - This phrase, denoting the whole thing, the
entirety of it all, is an old expression, used as early as the American
Revolutionary War. It comes from the three principle parts of a [muzzle
loading] firearm: the barrel, "the pipe down which the bullets are
fired," the lock, "the firing mechanism," and the stock, "the wooden
handle to which the other parts are attached." Together, lock, stock and
barrel referred to the entire gun and the phrase are now used to suggest
the whole of anything.
<BR>--M.T. Wyllyamz; 1992; published by Price, Stern, Sloan, Los Angeles.
<HR>
"Poor people have access to the courts in the same sense that the
Christians had access to the lions. . ."
<BR>--Judge Earl Johnson Jr.
<HR>
"It is not the function of our government to keep the citizen from
falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the
government from falling into error."
<BR>--Justice Robert H. Jackson
<HR>
"A great industrial Nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our
system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the Nation and all our
activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the
worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated
Governments in the world -- no longer a Government of free opinion, no
longer a Government by conviction and vote of the majority, but a
Government by the opinion and duress of small groups of dominant men."
<BR>--Woodrow Wilson
<HR>
"It is proper to take alarm at the first experiment on our liberties. We
hold this prudent jealousy to be the first duty of citizens and one of
the noblest characteristics of the late Revolution. The freemen of
America did not wait till usurped power had strengthened itself by
exercise and entangled the question in precedents. They saw all the
consequences in the principle, and they avoided the consequences by
denying the principle. We revere this lesson too much ... to forget it."
<BR>--James Madison
<HR>
"Those rights, then, which God and nature have established, and are
therefore called natural rights, such as life and liberty, need not the
aid of human laws to be more effectually invested in every man than they
are; neither do they receive any additional strength when declared by
the municipal laws to be inviolate. On the contrary, no human
legislature has power to abridge or destroy them, unless the owner shall
himself commit some act that amounts to a forfeiture."
<BR>--Sir William Blackstone
<HR>
"I always marveled at how a woman who had never handled a gun could
shoot an errant husband straight through the heart on her first try,
with one shot. And a trained policeman, trying to shoot an armed bank
robber, only ends up hitting a elderly woman waiting for a bus two
blocks away."
<BR>--H.L. Mencken in his autobiographical "Newspaper Days"
<HR>
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new
discoveries, is not "Eureka!" (I found it!), but "That's funny ..."
<BR>--Isaac Asimov
<HR>
"There are only three kinds of people: those who make things happen,
those who watch things happen, and those who wonder 'what happened?'."
<BR>--Anonymous
<HR>
"It is often easier to apologize for your actions than to ask permission
to do those actions."
<BR>--Anonymous
<HR>
"Ships are very safe when in port. Unfortunately a ship's mission has
nothing to do with staying in port!"
<BR>--Anonymous
<HR>
Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface.
<BR>--Anonymous
<HR>
"Obviously, a man's judgment cannot be better than the information on
which he has based it.  Give him the truth and he may still go wrong
when he has the chance to be right, but give him no news or present
him only with distorted and incomplete data, with ignorant, sloppy or
biased reporting, with propaganda and deliberate falsehoods, and you
destroy his whole reasoning process, and make him something less than
a man."
<BR>--Arthur Hays Sulzberger, 1891-1968, American newspaper publisher
<HR>
In a study by the BATF and Washington DC police called "Operation CUE
(Concentrated Urban Enforcement)" the BATF determined that in Washington
DC -- where civilian possession of firearms is for all practical purposes
BANNED -- guns used in crimes came from three major sources:
       40% stolen from legal owners (presumably outside DC)
       40% stolen from the DC police (!!!!)
       20% homemade (not a shoddy number)
<HR>
The following was originally posted by Phil Ronzone.  Statistics seem to
indicate that there are fewer injuries when a gun is present at a crime scene.
Information in the rest of this posting comes from:
<HR>
Report to the Nation on Crime and Justice, Second Edition, U.S.  Department
of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, NCJ-105506, March 1988.
<P>
<CENTER>HOW DO PEOPLE PROTECT THEMSELVES FROM CRIME?</CENTER>
<P>
There has been debate of how much (if any!?) crime has been prevented by
owning a firearm.
<P>
The following figures are based on the BJS National Crime Survey,
1979-85, and are reported as follows. Note that only victims reporting
sucessful prevention are reported (i.e., no homicide figures).
<P>
The percent figure is the percentage of the victimizations that were PREVENTED.
  A weapon was used or brandished ... 3% in  1,206,755 rapes ----->     36,202
  A weapon was used or brandished ... 4% in  8,484,516 robberies ->    339,380
  A weapon was used or brandished ... 4% in 36,269,845 assaults -->  1,450,793
                                                                     ---------
                                                                     1,826,375
<P>
Seems to me that 1.8 million violent victimizations speak pretty highly of
weapons use and brandishing.
<P>
<CENTER>VICTIM-OFFENDER RELATIONSHIP FOR HOMICIDES, ASSAULTS, ROBBERIES</CENTER>
<P>
<PRE>
Again, most murder victims are NOT relatives!!
                   Homicide  Robbery  Assault
                   --------  -------  -------
       Strangers     18%       75%      51%
       Acquaintance  39%       17%      35%
       Relative      18%        4%       4%
       Unknown       26%        4%       4%

            WEAPONS INVOLVED IN CRIME

For 1985, for robbery and assaults, the following is how
many incidents involved a firearm and how many involved a knife.
                 Robbery  Assault
                 -------  -------
         Firearm   23%      12%
         Knife     21%      10%
</PRE>
<P>
What is MOST interesting is that in robbery and assaults, a gun was ACTUALLY
fired and hit the victim ONLY 4% of the time in all incidents in 1985!  Yet
victims were actually stabbed in 10% in the knives incidents.  i.e., for robbery
and assaults, it will be about even the number of times a gun is used or a knife
is used, yet if a knife is used, you will be TWICE as likely to be stabbed as to
be shot.
<P>
A quote from page 21: "When guns are present victims are less likely to be
injured than if the offender is armed with a knife or other weapon because guns
are often used to coerce the victim into compliance, according to the NCS".
<P>
<CENTER>INTERESTING QUOTES</CENTER>
<P>
Page 14: "The percentage of households touched by crime has declined over
the past 10 years ... from 32% of households [touched by crime] to 25% of
all households ... personal larceny from 16% to 12%, burglary from 8% to 5%.
<P>
Page 15: A beautiful picture (of a graph) showing the decline in per capita
homcides since 1980.
<P>
The phrase originates with John Selde, (1584-1654) in 'Table Talk'
<P>
  "Ignorance of the law excuses no man; not that all men know
   the law, but that because 'tis an excuse every man will
   plead, and no man can tell how to confute him."
<HR>
Subject: Cicero on Self-Defense, written 43 B.C.
<P>
"And indeed, gentlemen, there exists a law, not written down anywhere but
inborn in our hearts; a law which comes to us not by training or custom or
reading but by derivation and absorption and adoption from nature itself; a
law which has come to us not from theory but from practice, not by
instruction but by natural intuition.  I refer to the law which lays it
down that, if our lives are endangered by plots or violence or armed
robberies or enemies, any and every method of protecting ourselves is
morally right.  When weapons reduce them to silence, the laws no longer
expect one to await their pronouncments.  For people who decide to wait for
these will have to wait for justice, too -- and meanwhile they suffer
injustice first.  Indeed, even the wisdom of the law itself, by a sort of
tacit implication, permits self-defense, because it does not actually
forbid men to kill; what it does, instead, is to forbid the bearing of a
weapon with the intention to kill.  When, therefore, an inquiry passes
beyond the mere question of the weapon and starts to consider the motive, a
man who has used arms in self-defense is not regarded as having carried
them with a homicidal aim."
<P>
quoted on page 17 in Stephen P. Halbrook -- That Every Man Be Armed: The
                     Evolution of a Constitutional Right
<P>
published in 1984, by The University of New Mexico Press
                  and The Independent Institute.
<HR>
The following is copied from The Soldiers Training Manual
issued by the War Department, November 30, 1928:
<P>
TM2000-25: 118-120
DEMOCRACY:  A government of the masses.  Authority derived through mass meeting
or any other form of direct expression.  Results in mobocracy.  Attitude toward
property is communistic- negating property rights.  Attitude toward law is that
the will of the majority shall regulate, whether it be based upon deliberation
or governed by passion, prejudice, and impulse, without restraint or regard to
consequences.  Results in demagogism, license, agitation, discontent, anarchy.
<P>
TM 2000-25: 120-121
REPUBLIC:  Authority is derived throughout the election by the people of public
officials best fitted to represent them.  Attitude toward property is respect
for laws and individual rights, and a sensible economic procedure.  Attitude
toward law is the administration of justice in accord with fixed principles and
established evidence, with a strict regard to consequences.  A greater number of
citizens and extent of territory may be brought within its compass.  Avoids the
dangerous extreme of either tyranny or mobocracy.  Results in statesmanship,
liberty, reason, justice, contentment, and progress.
<HR>
{CASE} Farmer vs. Higgens (1991 -- 11th Circuit) -- SC declined to
hear an appeal of this case in which the Circuit Court upheld the 1986
Congressional ban on the manufacture of new machine guns.
<HR>
{CASE} Griswold vs. Connecticut (1965)
<HR>
{CASE} Lewis vs. United States (1980) -- SC upheld the Gun Control Act
of 1968 prohibitions against felons owning firearms.  The Court used a rational
basis test in its decision, as opposed to strict scrutiny. The Court stated,
"These legislative restrictions on the use of firearms do not trench upon any
constitutionally protected liberties."
<HR>
{CASE} Presser vs. Illinois (1886) -- SC ruled the the 2nd amendment
serves only to prevent the federal government from interfering with state
militias.  States retain the power to regulate firearms.
<HR>
{CASE} United States vs. Miller (1939) -- SC upheld a federal law
against shipping sawed-off shotguns across state lines, on the basis that the
law did not affect the "preservation or efficiency of a well regulated
militia."
<HR>
{CASE} United States vs. Warin (1976 -- 6th Circuit) -- The Circuit
Court upheld a conviction under a federal law prohibiting possession of
unregistered machine guns.  The Court held that "every argument made by the
defendant...[is] based on the erroneous supposition that the Second Amendment
is concerned with the rights of individuals rather than those of the states."
<HR>
{CASE} 16 Am Jur 2d, Sec 177, late 2d, Sec 256 (?):  "The general rule is that
an unconstitutional statute, though having the form and name of law, is in
reality no law, but is wholly void, and ineffective for any purpose; since
unconstitutionality dates from the time of it's enactment, and not merely from
the date of the decision so branding it."
<HR>
{CASE} 16 Am Jur 2d, Sec 177, late 2d, Sec 256:  "No one is bound to obey an
unconstitutional law, and no courts are bound to enforce it."
<HR>
{CASE} Amos vs. Mosley, 74 Fla. 555; 77 So. 619:  "If the legislature clearly
misinterprets a constitutional provision, the frequent repetition of the wrong
will not create a right."
<HR>
{CASE} Bowers vs. DeVito, 686 F.2d 616, at 618 (7th Cir. 1982):  "There is no
constitutional right to be protected by the state against being murdered by
criminals or madmen."
<HR>
{CASE} Brandes vs. Mitteriling, 196 P.2d 464, 467, 657 Ariz 349:  "Sovereignty
means supremacy in respect of power, domination, or rank; supreme dominion,
authority or rule."
<HR>
{CASE} Chisholm vs. State of Georgia (US) 2 Dall 419, 454, 1 L Ed 440, 455
@DALL 1793 pp. 471-472:  "...at the Revolution, the sovereignty devolved on the
people; and they are truly the sovereigns of the country, but they are
sovereigns without subjects...with none to govern but themselves; the citizens
of America are equal as fellow citizens, and as joint tenants in the
sovereignty."
<HR>
{CASE} Chisholm vs. State of Georgia, Ga., 2. U.S. (2 Dall.) 419, 471, 1 L. Ed.
440:  ""Sovereignty" is the right to govern.  In Europe the sovereignty is
generally ascribed to the prince; here it rests with the people.  There the
sovereign actually administers the government; here, never in a single
instance.  Our governors are the agents of the people, and at most stand in the
same relation to their sovereign in which regents in Europe stand to their
sovereign.  Their princes have personal powers, dignities, and pre-eminences.
Our rulers have none but official, nor do they partake in the sovereignty
otherwise, or in any other capacity than as private citizens."
<HR>
{CASE} City of Bisbee vs. Cochise County, 78 P.2d 982, 986, 52 Ariz. 1:
""Government" is not "sovereignty." "Government" is the machinery or expedient
for expressing the will of the sovereign power."
<HR>
{CASE} Filbin Corporation vs. United States, D.C.S.C., 266 F. 911, 914:  "The
"sovereignty" of the United States consists of the powers existing in the
people as a whole and the persons to whom they have delegated it, and not as a
separate personal entity, and as such it does not possess the personal
privileges of the sovereign of England; and the government, being restrained by
a written Constitution, cannot take property without compensation, as can the
English government by act of king, lords, and Parliament."
<HR>
{CASE} Hale vs. Henkel, 201 U.S. 43, 279:  "If, whenever an officer of employee
of a corporation were summoned before a grand jury as a witness he could refuse
to produce the books and documents of such corporation, upon the ground that
they would incriminate the corporation itself, it would result in the failure
of a large number of cases where the illegal combination was determinable only
upon the examination of such papers. Conceding that the witness was an officer
of the corporation under investigation, and that he was entitled to assert the
rights of the corporation with respect to the production of its books and
papers, we are of the opinion that there is a clear distinction in this
particular between an individual and a corporation, and that the latter has no
right to refuse to submit its books and papers for an examination at the suit
of the state. The individual may stand upon his constitutional rights as a
citizen. He is entitled to carry on his private business in his own way. His
power to contract is unlimited. He owes no duty to the state or to his
neighbors to divulge his business, or to open his doors to an investigation, so
far as it may tend to incriminate him.  He owes no such duty to the state,
since he receives nothing therefrom, beyond the protection of his life and
property. His rights are such as existed by the law of the land long antecedent
to the organization of the state, and can only be taken from him by due process
of law, and in accordance with the Constitution. Among his rights are a refusal
to incriminate himself, and the immunity of himself and his property from
arrest or seizure except under a warrant of the law. He owes nothing to the
public as long as he does not trespass upon their rights." /-P-/ "Upon the
other hand, the corporation is a creature of the state. It is presumed to be
incorporated for the benefit of the public. It receives certain special
privileges and franchises, and holds them subject to the laws of the state and
the limitations of its charter. Its powers are limited by law. It can make no
contract not authorized by its charter. Its rights to act as a corporation are
only preserved to it so long as it obeys the laws of its creation. There is a
reserved right in the legislature to investigate its contracts and find out
whether it has exceeded its powers..."
<HR>
{CASE} Kingsley vs. Merril, 122 Wis. 185; 99 NW 1044:  "A long and uniform
sanction by law revisers and lawmakers, of a legislative assertion and exercise
of power, is entitled to a great weight in construing an ambiguous or doubtful
provision, but is entitled to no weight if the statute in question is in
conflict with the plain meaning of the constitutional provision."
<HR>
{CASE} Marbury vs. Madison, 5 US (@ Cranch) 137, 174, 176, (1803):  "All laws
which are repugnant to the Constitution are null and void."
<HR>
{CASE} Miranda vs. Arizona, 384 US 436 p. 491:  "Where rights secured by the
Constitution are involved, there can be no rule making or legislation which
would abrogate them."
<HR>
{CASE} Norton vs. Shelby County, 118 US 425 p.442:  "An unconstitutional act is
not law; it confers no rights; it imposes no duties; affords no protection; it
creates no office; it is in legal contemplation, as inoperative as though it
had never been passed."
<HR>
{CASE} Riley vs. Carter, 165 Okal. <Okla.??>  262; 25 P. 2d 666; 79 ALR 1018:
"Economic necessity cannot justify a disregard of cardinal constitutional
guarantee."
<HR>
{CASE} Robin vs. Hardaway, 1 Jefferson 109, (Va., 1772):  "All acts of the
legislature apparently contrary to natural rights and justice are, in our law
and must be in the nature of things, considered void ... We are in conscience
bound to disobey."
<HR>
{CASE} Scott vs. Sandford, Mo., 60 US 393, 404, 19 How. 393, 404, 15 L.Ed. 691:
 "The words "sovereign people" are those who form the sovereign, and who hold
the power and conduct the government through their representatives. Every
citizen is one of these people and a constituent member of this sovereignty."
<HR>
{CASE} Slote vs. Board of Examiners, 274 N.Y. 367; 9 NE 2d 12; 112 ALR 660:
"Disobedience or evasion of a constitutional mandate may not be tolerated, even
though such disobedience may, at least temporarily, promote in some respects
the best interests of the public."
<HR>
{CASE} State vs. Sutton, 63 Minn. 147, 65 NW 262, 30 L.R.A. 630 Am. St. 459:
"When any court violates the clean and unambiguous language of the
Constitution, a fraud is perpetrated and no one is bound to obey it." (See 16
Ma. Jur. 2d 177, 178)
{CASE} US vs. Dougherty, 473 F 2nd 1113, 1139 (1972):  "The pages of history
shine on instance of the jury's exercise of its prerogative to disregard
instructions of the judge ..."
<HR>
{CASE} US vs. Miller (supreme Court):  "The signification attributed to the
term Militia appear from the debates in the Convention, the history and
legislation of Colonies and States, and the writings of approved commentators
[Justice Story's commentary is cited later]. These show plainly enough that the
Militia comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the
common defense... And further, that ordinarily when called for service these
men were expected to appear bearing arms supplied by themselves and of a kind
in common use at the time."
<HR>
{CASE} US vs. Moylan, 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, 1969, 417 F.2d at 1006:
"If the jury feels the law is unjust, we recognize the undisputed power of the
jury to acquit, even if its verdict is contrary to the law as given by a judge,
and contrary to the evidence ... and the courts must abide by that decision."
<HR>
{CASE} Warren vs. District of Columbia, 444 A.2d 1 (D.C. App.181):  "... a
government and its agents are under no general duty to provide public services,
such as police protection, to any particular individual citizen..."
<HR>
{CASE} Wills vs. Michigan Dept. of State Police, 105 L.Ed. 2nd 45 (1989):
"States and state officials acting officially are held not to be "persons"
<HR>
subject to liability under 42 USCS section 1983."
<HR>
{CASE} Yick Wo vs. Hopkins, Sheriff, 118 U.S. 356.:  "Sovereignty itself is, of
course, not subject to the law, for it is the author and source of law, but in
our system, while sovereign powers are delegated to the agencies of government,
sovereignty itself remains with the people, by whom and for whom all government
exists and acts." - "For, the very idea that one man may be compelled to hold
his life, or the means of living, or any material right essential to the
enjoyment of life, at the mere will of another, seems to be intolerable in any
country where freedom prevails, as being the essence of slavery itself."
<HR>
{CODE} 26 USC 7701 A(1)(14):  "The term "taxpayer" means any person subject to
any internal revenue tax."
<HR>
{CODE} 4 USC 71 & 72.. Title 4, USC Section 71:  "All that part of the
territory of the United States included within the present limits of the
District of Columbia shall be the permanent seat of the United States."
<HR>
{CODE} 56 L.Ed. 2d. 895 -- Def. of "person":  "Statutes employing the word
"person" are ordinarily construed to exclude the sovereign."
<HR>
{CODE} Title 4, USC Section 72:  "All offices attached to the seat of
government shall be exercised in the District of Columbia and not elsewhere,
except as otherwise expressly provided by law."
<HR>
From Dick Armey's "The Freedom Revolution" (Regnery Publishing, 1995), as
reviewed in the February, 1996, Freeman:
<BR> "The politics of greed always comes wrapped in the language of love."
<BR> "When you're weaned from the milk of sacred cows, you're bound to get
heartburn."
<BR? "If you love peace more than freedom, you lose."
<BR> "Social responsibility is a euphemism for personal irresponsibility."
<BR> "There is nothing more arrogant than a self-righteous income
redistributor."
<BR> On U.S. farm policy:  "One bad government program creates the need for
a worse one."
<HR>
William H. Peterson, from February, 1996, Freeman:
"Nothing succeeds like a failed government program."
<HR>
Blaise Pascal, 1670:  It is force, not opinion, that queens its way over the
world, but it is opinion that looses the force.
<HR>
Nobel laureate John Steinbeck:  "We may be thankful that frightened civil
authorities ... have not managed to eradicate from the country the tradition
of the possession and use of firearms, that profound and almost instinctive
tradition of Americans.
<BR>"Luckily for us, our tradition of bearing arms has not gone from the
country, the tradition is so deep and so dear to us that it is one of the
most treasured parts of the Bill of Rights--the right of all Americans to
bear arms, with the implication that they will know how to use them."
<HR>
"...The Bill of Rights is a literal and absolute document.  The First
Amendment doesn't say you have a right to speak out unless the government
has a 'compelling interest' in censoring the Internet.  The Second Amendment
doesn't say you have the right to keep and bear arms until some madman 
plants a bomb.  The Fourth Amendment doesn't say you have the right to be
secure from search and seizure unless some FBI agent thinks you fit the 
profile of a terrorist.  The government has no right to interfere with
any of these freedoms under any circumstances."
<BR> --Harry Browne, 1996 USA presidential candidate, Libertarian Party
<HR>
THAT'S ALL (I've found), FOLKS!
<BR>If you've actually read all (or even most) of the above,
please drop me a note (mac@cis.ksu.edu) and let me know that
this "work" was actually worth it.  (So far, one person has.)
<HR>
#####
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